EP. 112 The Epic Power of Product Market Fit: Derek Tillotson's Journey with Haven Tents

In this episode, Derek Tiltson, CEO and founder of Haven Tents, discusses how his innovative hammock-tent hybrid solves common camping sleep issues. He shares insights on product development, Kickstarter campaigns, and creating engaging content for a niche outdoor brand. Learn how Haven Tents expanded beyond traditional campers to attract non-campers, revolutionizing the outdoor sleeping experience.

Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Anything you're doing as a business, you should put
it through this good, differentkind of like exercise, which is
to say, if you have an X and Yaxis and you have different
quadrants, y axis representsgood and the X axis represents
different, and every tent is thesame.
At the end of the day, theyhave some different features.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
That's like Well, you've got like the spring bar
version.
Yeah, it's a little bit alittle more lightweight.
Then you have the whitelightweight.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh, hey, we hey.
We added Like LED lights to it,which are cool features, but
are they different enough tomake Somebody say I'm gonna buy
that?
You've based your entireProduct development Strategy off
of a Core problem that the mostsavant Campers have and the
most basic campers have.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Which is hey, everyone, everyone has a hard
time sleeping.
Yep, and I think that that'sthe brilliance of what you're
doing with Haven and everyproduct that you're creating.
It still solves that problem.
Yo, what's going on?
Everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer Podcast.
With me, as always, is MarkGoldhart.
Mark Goldhart, how are youDoing?

(01:09):
Uh, I'm so tired.
Yeah, I am tired too.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Last night just destroyed me.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Mark and I decided to go see a client.
It wasn't really last minute,but we decided.
Like normally, when we go visitclients, we I mean if they're
close by we drive obviouslyClose by like, usually like
within an hour, an hour orsomething like that, but these
guys are like four hours away inthe same state and normally we
would fly.

(01:35):
But but like at the end of like, usually when we see clients
like I don't love stayingovernight, like I just want to
get back to my family as quickas possible, and so we're like
well, let's just there wasn't aflight back that's right, the
flight would have come back thenext day yeah, so you would have
.
We would have had to stay thenight yeah, and so, and at the
end of the day, like 2020.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Probably just should have done that.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
But yeah, it's fine but yeah, we woke up, we were on
the road at 6 30 met with aclient.
No well, it took us like fivehours to get there, normally
like a three hour 45 minutedrive, but we drove the Tesla.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
No, it took four hours from your area.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
No, it didn't.
Yeah, it didn't, it did, itdidn't, I promise.
Well, we agree to disagree onthat one, but anyways, we had to
stop twice With the Tesla.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, anyways because we left with the tesla.
Well, anyways, we left yourarea at 7.
We got down there at like 11,15 okay, number one, so tesla
makes it longer.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yep, we love our teslas, which wasn't bad on the
way, it was one, it was great itwasn't bad on the way there
because like we're meeting yeahwe're meeting, we're talking
about things that we need totalk about, that we oftentimes
don't get time to talk about, soit was good right like, we have
a four-hour meeting, which wasfine, but the way home I was
like man but then, yeah, then wemet all day.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
We left at 7 30 and that's when, like, all hell
broke loose and we had to stopthree times because it was so
cold but I will say, say thisfor Elon Musk If self-driving
could just self-drive and like,not monitor me, like if I could
just fall asleep whileself-drive, I would pay $200 a
month for that easy.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Oh, I'd pay like $400 a month for that I don't know
about $400.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
You know I'd turn it on and off if it was $400.
Yeah the self-driving was hard,but I'd just leave it on all
the time, like for 200 a month.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
So yeah, that was rough.
We had to stop three timesbecause it was like 18 degrees
driving, so the charge wouldn'tcharge fast just because
batteries, and Well it was atthe one, and anyways yeah, it
was at one station, it was atanother.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
It was silly.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
It was an awesome meeting.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
But I am excited If the client's listening to this.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
It was well worth it.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
We are very grateful we did it and you made the
planet better.
Totally worth it?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, Low emissions, yeah, we Low emissions, yeah,
exactly, much better emissionsthan my forerunner yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Very true.
The forerunner is not emissionfriendly, but but we're
dedicated.
So I'm sorry, yeah, I'm alittle tired, but I am very
excited.
The product he makes and theindustry it's in, yeah, should
we introduce him.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, he's been just sitting here just so quietly
just listening to our banjo.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I've been enjoying this story.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
So let's introduce our guesttoday is the CEO and founder of
an awesome product called HavenTents, derek Tiltson.
Derek, how are you, my friend,doing so well?
Thanks so much for having me on.
Thanks for coming on.

(04:30):
I've been a longtime listener.
Thank you, this is well.
That's why I, like, originallyreached out to Derek was because
I, you know, I post content onmy phone.
You know and, and, and I'm likeDerek, I can always like.
I can always expect a like andor a comment about anything we
post.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, the algorithm knows I wake up in the morning
and, like, the first thing thatI do is like.
I see, you know Trevor's justgreat advice about marketing.
And so this is my like.
Ok, great, I'm energized.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I'm going to start my day.
Look at you.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So I was like.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
So, like you know, I looked at it, I looked it up,
but I'm like look at thatno-transcript and I'm like Sandy
Utah, like, oh, this guy, ouroffices in Draper.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
I grew up in Sandy and I'm like what's up, man?
Like I'm like I graduated in 04.
Yeah, yeah, I was like I was 06and then he, and he's like my
name is derek tills and I'm likeI know blake.
In fact I've spent tons of timelike blake was, blake was uh

(05:34):
blake is your friend well, blakewas friends of friends.
You know what?
I mean like blake had his groupof buddies which was, like, I
would say, the basketball soccer, because he played basketball
and soccer.
Did he end up playing soccer orbasketball for Utah?

Speaker 3 (05:48):
State.
He played basketball for UtahState, played soccer for BYU.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Oh, he went down.
Okay cool, he could take hissport.
He was a really great athlete.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Shout out to.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Blake.
Yeah, really A D1 athlete fortwo different schools and two
different sports, that's prettyimpressive.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
A little different sports, that's pretty impressive
little dion sandry.
You know that's, that's prettycool so anyways, yeah, so blake
had his group of buddies andthen I had my group of buddies
and my group of buddies was likefriends with his group of
buddies, so like we weren'tnecessarily the like.
I'm not calling blake to belike, hey, what are you doing?
I'm calling my buddies, we goto a party, we see blake and his
friends at a party and thenwe're all together.

(06:22):
That was does that make sense.
Relationship wise, yeah, so.
So, yeah, I know Blake verywell and I knew of you, but I
didn't know you.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
And you knew my sister and sister-in-law Went to
school with them.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Small world Utah's a fun hub for e-commerce.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
It's underrated it is , and it's been fun to kind of
get to know the community.
Yeah, and you know, meetdifferent founders Totally, you
know marketers like yourselves,that is fun.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, let's jump into the podcast here, but more fun
is this hammock tent, yeah, sowhat I want to hear.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Let's jump into your story a little bit and let's
jump into the product, becausethis product is like.
The product was one of the mainreasons why, like in my mind, I
was like I don't even need toask what your sales are, I don't
care if you're selling tenthousand dollars a month or if
you're selling a million dollarsa month.
Like this is a really coolstory and I think it's a huge,

(07:14):
huge lesson, no matter how, whatlevel of success you've
accomplished, so let's jump intoit.
Let's talk about the product,let's talk about you.
So let's give you the floor fora second, and then we'll jump
into thanks for Thanks forhaving me on.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, so sales by background.
It's been a lot of time insales and marketing and in
storytelling and I was justlaying in a hammock one day and
thought this would be so muchbetter if I was flat.
I'm sure a lot of people havebeen in hammocks before and they
know that it bends them like abanana or it kind of constricts
them, pins their feet togetheror whatever.
There's a bunch of reasons whypeople enjoy hammocks for like

(07:45):
10 seconds or 10 minutes but notfor a whole night.
Yeah, and so that was me.
I was not a hammock camper.
It wasn't like I spent all thistime camping in hammocks.
That let me just, you know,refine this just a little bit.
I was a complete outsider andthought how could I make this
thing different?
I never spent any time making aproduct.

(08:06):
I'd never done that at all.
But earlier that year my wifeand I had sold our house and we
went to travel with our threekids for a year, went to 38
countries in a year, and as Iwas traveling I was creating
content for hotels and travelcompanies to kind of like fund
our travel.
We weren't getting paid for it,but we were getting a lot of
free stuff, which was fun.
But I was creating all thiscontent and I set a goal to make

(08:27):
that year my year of creativity.
And so I have this idea for ahammock or a hammock design, and
before I put it to bed, Ithought, no, this is my year of
creativity, so let me take it toat least the first prototype,
and the first prototype wasactually pretty good.
It was a lot better than oursecond.
And our third prototype wasactually pretty good.
It was a lot better than oursecond and our third.
But we continued to evolve andfigure out exactly what made

(08:47):
that first prototype so greatand continue to tweak and
develop and build.
Then we launched on kickstarterin 2019, did just under a
hundred thousand in sales aspart of our first kickstarter
but it was the goal, kickstartergoal, it was like 20 000 or
something and so, but it wascompletely bootstrapped.
Like it was literally just me.
I made the video I shot, I madeall of Like.
It was literally just me.
I made the video, I shot, Imade all of the things.
It was literally just a one-manshow.

(09:09):
At that point, and I remember Ihad told such a good story this
is the most comfortable way tosleep outside is basically what
I had pitched on thisKickstarter campaign.
And so when this like littlemini container of tents showed
up at our office in Sandy, I waslike, oh my gosh, did I just?
I mean, kickstarter is theperfect example of jumping and

(09:31):
learning to fly on the way downbecause I literally told
everybody this is the best thingever.
And now I'm going to startshipping it.
And are people going to bedisappointed?
Are they going to be impressed?
And so I'm shaking as I putthese tents in boxes with nerves
and shipped them out.
And they loved it.
Our first batch customers lovedthe product.
We saw that you would gocamping with your friends and

(09:54):
you would actually sleep better.
Our product is demonstrablybetter at providing sleep
outside.
I don't think you can say thatabout a tent or a regular
hammock.
It's just like different ways ofmitigating the worst case
scenario which is camping, whichis for most people, you know,
sleeping outside, and so this isa huge improvement on that.

(10:15):
And so we've continued to grow,you know, year over year it's
been great.
We've been in business now forabout five years and, yeah, it's
been an awesome ride.
I never would have thought, youknow, six years ago that I'd be
here on a podcast talking aboutmarketing and hammock companies
, but it's been great.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Wait, explain why it's demonstrably better for
sleep.
Okay.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
I mean, anybody who's ever tried to sleep outside on
a tent or sorry, on a pad or ina hammock, they know that it's a
far cry from sleeping in theirbed at home.
Sure, it's super different,right, and maybe after a few
nights you'll be tired enoughand sleep deprived enough that
you can make it through a night.
But normally when I'm campingand sleeping on a pad on the

(10:57):
ground, I wake up at like threeand then I'm not tired enough to
go back to sleep, and thatweighs on the rest of your day,
because now you're tired.
And so the fact that this ismuch more like the at-home sleep
experience you basically justcarried your bed from home
outside.
It feels so much more like your, like your bed at home, than

(11:17):
anything else.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, I would probably say also like I mean, I
haven't used the product yet,but as a as you're probably more
stereotypical Utah that isn'tan avid camper like I camp once
to twice a year and generally nomore than like two nights,

(11:40):
Right Like that's.
And I would say that that'slike the.
I bet that that's actually theaverage Utah.
Now you have some Utahns whoare like well, your true average
is less than that.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah you're true, yeah, but like most, like if
you're an avid camper outdoorsy.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Obviously, that's very different, right, you're a
lot more outdoorsy than I am.
And like there's three reasonswhy I hate camping.
And all through I shouldn't say, hey, hate camping, why camping
?
I don't do camping more often?
And all three of those reasonshave to do with sleeping.
And the first is, like one, ifI don't have the right comfort

(12:14):
of pad, that's that's what makesit hard for me to.
I'm never level, right, yeah.
And three, when I'm on theground, dependent upon where,
what time of year, I'm likereally cold, like even though
I'm in a sleeping bag.
I just don't like a sleepingbag, you know.
So I wonder if this like onelevels you out more from like

(12:35):
depending on where you are atthe pad, right, I don't know, it
sounds like it's reallycomfortable.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
It's a thick pad and it's if you lay our pad on the
ground, which we do at showssometimes, we'll lay the pad on
the ground and people lay on it.
And it's a comfortable pad, butthen they put it in the hammock
and it's just that much better.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Because the hammock provides more of a yeah, like
it's more level, yeah, and thatto like it's not, it's more
level.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, yeah, and that to me actually almost seems like
the best, but it probablyprobably makes you feel like
there's a little more give tooright like you have a little.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
What do you say?
Like buoyancy, yeah, but that'swith water, like sure.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, like you know, you like if you watch the, you
know mattress commercials thatyou've seen a million times.
They always show like theperson's spine and like right,
like the body's kind ofcontouring and the spine is
straight and that's what ourhammock does.
And for people that don't knowwhat a Haven tent is, it's
basically it's a lay flathammock tent that's built around
a pad, so where a lot of peoplekind of throw in a pad as an

(13:35):
afterthought into a hammock forinsulation or for some stability
.
We actually built it from theground up, like how can we make
this pad float in the air?

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
And that's kind of the idea around it.
Yeah, super cool.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, I believe it.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, I believe people sleep a lot better
because, yeah, I'm very excitedfor your take on it when you use
it.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, I mean I again sleeping.
Like you said, we bought acamping trailer for our family
so that my wife could sleep,trailer for our family so that
my wife could sleep, like I meanshe loves camping, but like we
had to get a trailer becauseshe's like I can't, I can't
sleep out here and it was justthen.
It was miserable and thenobviously we have, like you know

(14:15):
, we have little little kidslike a one-year-old, so that
also changes things a little bit.
But but for me, like I go upwithout kids just for like a fly
fishing trip with some friends,like at least once or twice a
year, right, and I would usuallydo a hammock really yeah, and I
mean I don't sleep good at allyeah, that sounds miserable to

(14:37):
me, a hammock waking up and flyfishing makes it worth it, but
for sure this would be farbetter so why would you go
hammock over just regular groundtent?
Because it's like if you're onlyup there for a night, it's
usually like, hey, let's go upthere, fish sleep, fish leave.
I'm not going to set up a wholetent.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
So the quick setup is kind of what you're after I
just want to get something setup.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
I want to sleep.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
I don't want to carry a bunch of equipment because I
already got my fly fishing gearright, so that's why I did I
would do okay, cool, so tell mewhat.
What do you think like?
You set a goal of 20k onkickstarter and you you end up
doing over 100k.
What?
What do you think was thecatalyst that was was able to
help you skip?
What was?
Was that you know a five X ofwhat you what your goal was Like
?
What do you think about it?
Did that for you.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
I think it was the promises that I was making, and
the story I was telling and howmany people it kind of resonated
with, right when, when I wasexplaining what our product did,
you started to kind of connectthe dots.
Well, I love camping, I lovebeing outside, but the three
reasons why I don't like it aresleep, yeah, are all sleep
related?
Yeah, well, we kind of come inand solve that, yeah, and we say
we can make the outdoorscomfortable, sure.

(15:51):
And so I think that initialvalue add was what carried us
over the top.
I got to say that the video wasokay, yeah, sub part, it
definitely looked homemade, sure.
So I think that we carried someof that like oh, this is a
legitimate startup, we know thatby supporting this company, we
were supporting this guy who'san entrepreneur.
Like, it definitely had some ofthat to it too, but I think it

(16:12):
was just connecting those dotsfor people of comfort outside.
Did you guys run ads to it?
We did run some ads.
Yeah, cool, through Meta,through Meta, yeah, right.
And honestly, everything that Idid was kind of like oh, I
guess we're supposed to run ads.
How does that work, I don'tknow.
And everything was kind of likejust kind of stumbling forward,
and so a friend of mine had had, you know, run some ads, so

(16:36):
he's he stepped in and helped usrun some ads and things.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
And well, kickstarter is interesting, right, because
I feel like the heyday ofkickstarter was maybe 2014 12,
14 is what I was going to think.
You know, I'm not a hugekickstarter guy, so I don't.
I can't sit here to say like Iknow exactly what to do and how
to do.
But if I remember right, thatwas when, like, if you created a
good video and a good story,like nomadic was a yeah, big

(16:59):
kickstarter story from utah thatI I'm trying to remember, I
mean, I think chirp Chirp wasChirp Fawn Design.
Was.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Fawn?
I believe so.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, they might have been.
Rags might have been as well.
I don't know about Rags WasThread.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Wallets, one I don't remember.
But, for sure, nomadic was abig big big.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, I know Chirp was for a fact, but of quality
yeah, they still do that.
Yeah, you kind of hitkickstarter on the tail end of
when it was I don't want to usethe word easy, because nothing's
easy but it got so much morecompetitive and so many more
products and it just wasn't aseasy.

(17:37):
What was the other onekickstarter?
And then?
indiegogo indiegogo, indiegogo,right.
So, um, to me, like, my firstthought is like, I think,
between the story you tell andthe problems that it solves, but
also just the sheer fact thatthe product is very different,
like it is very different.
I know I know people create fatlike you're not the only person

(17:57):
who creates a flat bed hammock,yeah, but it's so different from
anything I've seen and I likeone of my favorite Quotes.
We had a guy on the podcast hewhy can't I forget his name?
Anyway, he's the CMO of BruceBoll and Chris Hall.
That is a.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
The.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
EECOM cowboy.
Yes, I know him from Twitter.
Right, we had him on thepodcast, bruce.
Well, it's like a Battinggloves, okay for kids, yeah, oh
yeah, yeah, they just exploded,you know like a hundred million
plus dollar company, wow, and hesaid this quote that I just
like I always think about allthe time and he says behind
every great marketer is a betterproduct.
Yeah, you know and so, like Ithink it to you know, it's like

(18:39):
there's the storytelling whichis the marketing, and then
there's a product which is justlike right.
Sometimes when you have a greatproduct, you don't, it doesn't
matter.
The story like the producttells the story itself.
And so how important hasproduct development been for you
since the first launch to now?

Speaker 3 (18:54):
yeah, it's been huge.
I think word of mouth has beenone of our biggest drivers.
You know, you'll go on thisnext fly fishing trip with your
haven tent and your buddies willact Well.
They'll want to hop in and tryit out and say, wow, this is
more comfortable than what Ihave.
And they're going to spend allnight tossing and turning,
sliding off their pad, being ata weird angle, being cold or
whatever Right, and they'regoing to say, oh, you know, next

(19:14):
year I'm going to get this.
We've seen some of those earlyKickstarter supporters now go on
hunting trips and they haveseven Haven tents all set up
with their crew, which has beenfun to see.
The fact that the product is outthere telling the story for you
makes it so much easier.
Sure, you just have that core,I would say.

(19:37):
As far as our success andgrowth within Haven Tents, it's
been on the merits of ourproduct.
I feel like I'm maybe an aboveaverage storyteller, but not
that great.
The product has definitely madeit a lot easier.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
What's your process for developing the product?

Speaker 3 (19:54):
It was that taking that initial idea and then
sketching, doing thoughtexperiments, trying to figure it
out, you know, building papermodels initially Like when I
look back and think of the factthat it's here, it's kind of a
miracle, based off of how poormy skills were when I was
starting.
We're going to be doing we didanother Kickstarter a few years

(20:15):
ago for the safari version ofthe tent, which is the uh, you
know canvas version of thehammock, and that did just over
400,000.
And we're doing anotherKickstarter this year for an
ultralight version of ourhammock and I don't know what
we're going to do.
It's funny.
The first Kickstarter, I wenttotal bootstrap and my whole
goal was I'm going to fund thefirst round of production.
That was the goal and we did it.

(20:38):
That goal was I'm going to fundthe first round of production.
That was the goal and we did it.
That's that's what we were ableto do.
For the second, you knowKickstarter, I started to kind
of listen to all of themarketing hype around
Kickstarter.
Like no, it's about findingcustomers, it's about reaching
an audience.
You're not supposed to makemoney through Kickstarter.
And so I kind of took took thatapproach.
We did a whole lot more insales, but we actually didn't
make any money through theprocess.

(20:58):
I mean granted, we acquiredcustomers and you're get your
name out there and stuff, yeah.
But anyway, this time I thinkI'm going to do a happy medium
of a blend.
And so if it ends up being morethan 400,000, great yeah, but
I'm not necessarily uh, you knowshooting for like just the most
we can possibly sell by justpumping a ton of money into ads
either.
Like, I want it to be anorganic, natural campaign that

(21:21):
actually helps our brand too.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Tell the audience why you guys utilize Kickstarter
versus capital that you may ormay not have, just to create it
up by yourselves.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Yeah, so we could do it ourselves.
Right, we could just run ads orwhatever.
But I think that Kickstartergives you a public validation
tool, so people aren't able tosee, wow, a thousand other
people are buying this already,which makes it easy for them to
adopt.
It kind of sits out there as abit of a beacon in a different

(21:54):
space as well.
You're able to marketdifferently, you're able to be
excited about it in a differentway.
Also, the model that thesuccess that we've had within
Kickstarter in the US has beenreplicated through partners in
Japan.
So we have a partner in Japan.
Once we do a campaign, they'llgo and do it in Japan and
they'll usually beat ourcampaigns.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
And so kind of setting an example of okay, how
much, how successful is thisproduct in the us?
Yeah, and then we can talk toour partners in norway, we can
talk to other retailers andthings and say, hey, look what,
look what the this is proof thatthere's demand for this totally
.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I asked the question just because one.
I think that there's definitelysome brands out there that
focus on product development,but you have a lot.
There was a.
There was a point in time likewhere, ok, let's go through a
timeline here.
So I feel like in the 2012 to2017 realm, it was really really

(22:59):
, really hard to start a brand,primarily because you couldn't
click a couple buttons and finda manufacturer, right, so, and
alibaba didn't exist, amazon wasnot what amazon was.
Drop shipping didn't reallyexist.
I mean, it did, but it didn't,you know, not at the scale that
it was.
And so the barrier of entry tobuild a website, to manufacture

(23:21):
a product, to raise capital to,you know, it was really hard.
In fact, the only thing backthen that made the barrier of
entry easier was Kickstarter, inmy opinion, right.
Right, because Shopify wasn't.
What Shopify was right back in2012 is what it is today.
Right, like you, just a coupleof couple buttons and you have a
whole website ready to rock androll, you know.
So I think product was reallyimportant because, like it, it

(23:46):
took a lot of effort for peopleto do it, you know.
But then what happened in maybelike 2019 to 2020, up until
maybe a couple years ago,product to me almost started to
get devalued because everyonesaid storytelling and marketing
is actually what sells more, andI still actually believe that.
Right, you see some of thecrappiest products getting sold

(24:07):
and crushing it now.
Will that brand succeed in thelong run?

Speaker 2 (24:11):
most likely not I think I think one of the terms
that's missing in thisconversation is product market
fit.
Sure, because in SAS they talkabout it all the time yeah, like
, product market fit Like, yeah,you need a great product, but
you also need a great productthat has fit within the market.
Like, sometimes, yes, goodmarketing can sometimes create

(24:31):
that fit.
And I think everyone goes backto like the toothpaste example
of like the 1900s.
Like, oh they, they convincedpeople of like how needed it was
because of the foam right.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Like they made it foam and then they would market
that as like, so it felt like itwas cleaning them.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
It felt like it was cleaning them.
So they felt a clean feeling.
Yeah, but a lot of e-commercecompanies, in my opinion, just
will not accept the fact thatthere is something called
product market fit, even withconsumer goods, and sometimes
your product has it or sometimesit doesn't.
And you find I think the greatthing about Kickstarter going

(25:07):
back to Kickstarter is it's avalidator of how much product
market fit you actually have.
Now it might not be a greatvalidator of your total
obtainable market or maybe yourtotal addressable market.
Like you, you might not reallyunderstand because maybe it's a
niche product and you have likea really cult crowd that wants
it.

(25:27):
But it is a great opportunityto get on there and, like you
said, you get validation veryquickly of if you you have, if
you're at least in the realm ofproduct market fit, and then you
can iterate off of that well,that's what I was.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
That's kind of the point I was trying to get to.
Right is like, as time has comeon, like people are starting to
recognize how much moreimportant good product is to
sustainably keep their brandgoing.
But sometimes I think peopleget nervous to go through the
product development stagebecause one they don't really
know how to do it like, how do Itest if there is product?

Speaker 2 (25:59):
market fit.
Yeah, sometimes I thinkprobably like to your point.
You know I wanted to, I wantedto emphasize product market fit,
because product development, Ithink, becomes an endeavor unto
itself.
Like we're developing productlike it just in this loop, with

(26:20):
no really idea of the outsidescope of does like, does this
product even fit within themarket?
Is it going to work?
Is it right?

Speaker 1 (26:26):
for us.
So that's why I like I actuallyreally you don't see a lot of
people doing what you're doingwith Kickstarter.
Right, I would say it'sactually happening a lot less
right?
We we have some clients who whouse it.
It like we talked about qualityright, they generally don't
create a new product unless theygo through kickstarter and it's
a lot of people think it's fora capital purposes.

(26:47):
But I like what you just saidthat's actually not it.
Hey, we could totally fund,yeah, we could do this tent, but
we want to go through andvalidate to make sure that
people actually want I would saythis hammock is a unique, you
know, kind of case study for it.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
So we launched with our regular Haven tent and then
we launched Haven exhale oneyear later, just kind of as as a
regular launch.
And then the next yearEverybody was pushing for us to
make a lighter hammock, which iseasier said than done, because
now you start working withdifferent materials and there's
all of these different,different constraints but I saw

(27:19):
that there was and also like areyou catering to like one
percent of the crap?
like yeah, yeah, sure, the mostoutspoken one percent versus
that, you know bigger part ofthe of the curve there this
episode is brought to you todayby bestie.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
If you are an e-commerce store on shopify,
stop and listen up.
Are you surveying yourcustomers?
Do you know how they get toyour website?
Do you know what marketingchannelying your customers?
Do you know how they get toyour website?
Do you know what marketingchannel introduced them to you?
Do you know what motivated themto buy?
Do you know what your MPS scoreis, if people actually like and
love your products?
If you don't know the answers tosome of those questions, or any
other questions you might havefor your customers, you need to

(27:54):
start using post-purchasesurveys.
Bestie is the onlypost-purchase survey provider
that utilizes AI to not onlyhelp you craft your questions,
but also takes the insights thatyour customers give you and
creates actionable insights andsteps for you to make as a
business to help grow and scaleyour company.

(28:15):
Today, bestie just loweredtheir prices so you can be
serving your customers for aslow as $39 a month.
And not only that, they have a14 day free trial in the app
store.
So go check them out right now.
Test the 14 day free trial.
If you happen to pay the $39 amonth, you are not going to lose
out on much and you are onlygoing to be able to gather more

(28:35):
data around your customers tohelp grow and scale your
businesses.
We love bestie and we use itfor every single brand we work
with.
Go check them out today atbestieai.
Where were you?
Can I ask a really quickquestion now because I want you
to finish the story?
But where are you getting thisinformation?
Is it on social?
Are you surveying people?
Yeah, what's?

Speaker 3 (28:53):
it's a little everything, a bit of the
squeakiest wheels so it's onit's on social being in the
community.
And then, well, honestly, whenwe go to shows and we're showing
the hammock to people, yeah,like you just get real-time
feedback so quickly and you makegreat content too, totally,
you're just getting this, youknow real.
So people, the one, the firstkind of hang up that people have
, is odd.
It's not an ultra, ultra lightsystem.

(29:13):
You know, our standard is aboutsix and a half pounds.
With you pick all the lightestoptions, it makes it about six
pounds for our standard, haven10.
The XL is about seven pounds, Iwas going to say with all of
our lightest options.
But that's, that's with the padright.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
I was gonna say this is not that heavy, considering
that there's a pad.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
Yeah, there's a pad in there and that's just it.
That make really really goodcanvas, heavy big tents and
there's no spring bar, there'sno canvas hammocks out there,
that there's no, you knowglamping hammocks, yeah.
And so I thought, well, what ifwe made one of these just as
comfortable as possible?
Again, that's kind of been mydesign thing, like how can we

(30:00):
make the pad more comfortable?
How can we make this morecomfortable?
Just 100 kind of focused oncomfort, and if weight wasn't an
issue, what?
How comfortable could we makethis thing?
And that's what we came up withsafari.
And so we launched somethingthat had never been before.
Nobody's ever made a canvashammock, nobody's ever tried to
see how heavy they can make ahammock.

(30:21):
It just hasn't been part of theproduct.
That product development loophas always kind of tended
towards being a lightweighthammock, and so we didn't really
know what kind of market therewould be for it.
Launched the Kickstarter.
It did really well.
It kind of proved that, oh,there is a spot for this product

(30:41):
, which helped convince a lot ofour you know, retail, retail
partners.
Oh yeah, this actually is ispretty cool, and now xl is our
top selling product.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
But this is number two yeah, um, what is your
anticipation for the lightweightone?

Speaker 3 (30:55):
oh, I have high hopes for it.
Yeah, yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
It's super cool, yeah , um yeah, what is the weight
supposed to be?
Because that one you said isseven or seven, with the pound
seven and this is this.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
It'll be the same hammock and it'll be around.
It'll be around four the thelightest option would be about
four and a half cool with thepad and which is a huge
difference more basic optionwill be around five pounds and
so it's still not going to behyper light.
So when people are doing thePacific Crest Trail or whatever
and they're, you know, cuttingtheir socks in half or like just

(31:28):
trying to conserve as muchweight as possible, it's
probably not going to appeal tothat crowd.
But like the guys that aregoing to hike in a few miles or
go for a week long backpackingtrip, like totally within the
realm and you're able to be ascomfortable as you are in your
bed at home, sure, so like thatis going to be a huge, you know,
value proposition.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
I think totally, very cool how worried about weight
when samwise had uh cast ironall the way to more, all the way
to more door.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Geez, what a stud though he was.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, right, people cutting their socks and Frodo
just is out there carrying hislittle ring around.
Just nothing yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
There's a nice metaphor in that the ring,
although light in weight, washeavier in spirit.
That's true.
That's right, that's true.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Maybe that is the heavier burden.
That's right.
I think it was.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
I think it was.
Now I'm just thinking aboutLord of the Rings.
How has product developmentbeen from a like what's your
returning customer look like?
Is it?
Do you have a pretty solidreturning customer rate?
I mean, this seems like a.
My guess is these aren'twearing out.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Right, right.
So we were looking at it lastweek actually, and the number
one repeat purchase aftersomebody buys a Haven XL hammock
, which is our biggest mainhammock, is another Haven XL.
Yeah, which is cool to see.
Sure, it's a one person system.
So, it means that they areenjoying it enough that they're
going to go buy it for somebodyelse in their family, maybe a

(32:55):
spouse or whatever.
And so we've been able to tackon some accessories as well,
again focusing on comfort, likehow can we just improve the
camping experience?
And I would like to evolve awayfrom just being a tent hammock
company to more of an outdoorlike let's just make the
outdoors as great as possible.
And so, yeah, it's fun becausewe do see a lot of repeat

(33:18):
customers.
We see these communities growingand like little pockets, and
there's an event that somebodyin our company goes to every
year called Hang Con.
It's in Florida and this lasttime there was a Haven Village.
They called it I mean, havenHaven is kind of like a you know
gimme, but they called it theHaven Village.
And there were like 10 you knowgimme, but they called it the

(33:38):
haven village and there werelike 10 haven tents that were
all set up around each other andyeah, you know they're gonna
have like a sign made for nextyear and everything.
So it's fun to see thesecommunities I was actually just
thinking about that.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Like this is this is disrupting the outdoor
experience in a lot of ways,right, right, because I think
everyone, when they think ofcamping, like they're thinking,
okay, we have to get a 10 up,right, and then it's usually if
you're a family, even if you'renot, like a big family,
generally tents end up beingcommunal, right, like a three
person tent to six person, 10 ortwo, but like with a better

(34:13):
sleeping experience and it justtakes up less space, like I'm,
I'm picking this up right, thisis an xl, yeah, like this xl is
with the pad is like basically atent, right, right, but with
such a better sleepingexperience, like, yeah, like,
why would a family prefer to getfour of these?

(34:34):
Yeah, maybe they're notsleeping all in the same, quote
tent, sure but I mean there'ssome advantages to that.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
Honestly, like let's, let's be honest.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
You know the snoring, the I was gonna say like the
like the rolling around likesomeone isn't sleeping,
someone's always not sleeping,well someone always someone's
not sleeping.
Well then, they're gonna get upand move.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Oh yeah, nothing's worse, like then.
And then they zip, like when I,when I camp.
Oftentimes when you're camping,you're being active.
So I feel like whenever I camp,I'm drinking a ton of water.
So I feel like I have to wakeup and pee once, no matter what,
twice sometimes, and I hatethat.
Like, and my wife and my kids,and the next morning my wife's

(35:16):
like, well, thanks for waking usup.
And, and you know, I like thenext morning my wife's like,
well, thanks for waking us up.
I'm like dang it, you know.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, Outside of getting a trailer like how do
you fix that experience?
Right and this and this isprobably the only way to fix it.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
I mean, we keep going back to that pain right, where
so many people love camp, like I, I love fishing.
They struggle with with thatsleeping experience, right.
Yeah, and also it's about beingpresent in the outdoors.
A lot of times when we set up atent, it's like you you hike to
this beautiful spot and thenyou hide out in a little cave

(35:47):
for like part of the day.
Yeah, and you can't see a darnthing with this.
You know you get the fly that'sthat's guide open.
You can see 360 degrees, youcan see everything, yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
And so you're actually like present and
immersed in the space, yeah,would you say, uh, like, who's
your customer?
Like you we were kind oftalking about this a little bit,
you know would you say you havethis like predefined customer,
or would you almost say, like,based on this conversation, I'm
almost feeling like, hey, ourcustomer is the person who's
experiencing the prop, thisproblem.

(36:16):
So it's not even like a age, x,y, z, they camp X amount of
times, or or is it that type ofperson?

Speaker 3 (36:23):
I think that you have that as a core, but I think
that where we've been able to dowell and grow I mean we've sold
nearly 40,000 of thesehammocks- over the last so we've
sold quite a few of thesethings, um, and how we've been
able to do that is, honestly, byexpanding outside.
So when I started the company,obviously it's a, it's a hammock
, and so you could, when I namedthe company, I named it Haven

(36:46):
tents to initially just likestep back from that little
circle of hammock camping.
Yeah, because if you look atthe camping space and then you
zoom in on how the percentage ofpeople that camp, how many of
those guys sleep in a hammockand I say guys because very,
very few girls sleep in hammocksit's like a very small little
circle, right, and thosecompanies do such a good job.

(37:07):
They've been there for so long,they have these great branding,
they have everything justtotally dialed in.
So rather than competing inthat space, let me position this
as a tent, because really thesleep experience is completely
different.
Yes, we have a hammock, butit's not like sleeping in a
hammock at all.
Have you done any?

Speaker 2 (37:26):
research about that pain point with men and women.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Do women?

Speaker 2 (37:34):
like, is sleep a bigger pain point for women when
they go camping than it is formen generally?
Yeah, because in my I mean justthis is totally subjective,
right, but you would say yes,well, in my family that's for
sure what it is Right Like, justfrom all the women I know in my
life.
Like the men like to go camping, the women like to go outdoors,

(37:56):
but the sleeping part is justlike.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
I don't want to deal with it yeah, one of the best
comments that we get prettyoften is my wife will go camping
with me now, which is just acool thing.
That like they were.
Maybe it was something they didwhen they were younger.
And then the wife's like, ah,I'm over that, and now she's
going back out there.
It's cool, it's like you'regetting people outside.
And last year we did a poll andwe asked we were bringing

(38:19):
people to our site for someother reason.
But while they were there, weasked them, you know, a few
questions to kind of get to knowthem a little bit, and we asked
, before getting involved withHaven Tents, what kind of a
camper were you?
Were you, you know, did yousleep in hammocks, did you sleep
in tents, or were you anon-camper and 35 you sleep in

(38:39):
tents or were you a non-camper?
yeah, and 35 of our customersidentified as non-campers 35
self-identified as people thatbefore getting a haven tent they
did not camp, and so it's.
It's like a smaller piece, butstill that's a huge piece.
Well, 35 is pretty substantialfor a camping product right and
the fact that we are connectingdots for people saying, oh, I'm
not a camper, but I would if Ihad this.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's very interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's also interesting what you said, that one of the
number one responses you get islike now my wife comes camping
with me.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
I mean, that's not, but we hear that quite a bit.
It's not like the number onething, but we get that a lot.
Or like, oh, I used to lovecamping, but my you know born
again campers because now theycan sleep comfortably.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Born again, campers, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
That's a good term.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
That's a good term.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
That is a good term.
Yeah, I love that because itshows that you've identified a
problem and that you're workingto fix an actual, real problem.
Not just that you experienced,right, because sometimes we
experience a problem that'squite unique and we think
everyone's experiencing it.
You're working to fix an actual, real problem, not just that
you experienced, right, becausesometimes we experience a
problem that's quite unique andwe think everyone's experiencing
it, but it's like is it reallyproduct worthy?
But you went down thisexploration and discovered like

(39:48):
oh yeah, I mean, look at howmany people have stopped camping
, because that example you saidis very relatable to a lot of
people.
I used to go camping as a kid.
My dad took me camping a fewtimes as a kid, or whatever.
It is Like they have a fewexperiences as a kid and they
loved it, but then as they gotolder, it's just that experience

(40:09):
of sleeping in a tent and justlike the nuances of it just
became not very fun.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
And now it's becoming fun again because, hey, if you
can get a good night's sleep,that does change the camping
experience very significantly.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yeah, and not just your nights, it changes your
days too, so it's like the wholething is better.
Oh, yeah, well yeah, sleepdictates.
So our goal is to make sleep thethe highlight of camping, which
obviously it's going to be theother stuff.
But, like, imagine lookingforward, like, oh, I I'm going
to go camping next week and I'mgoing to go fishing and I'm get
to sleep in my Haven tent.
Yeah, we have a guy, uh, uh, uh, Will, uh, will, bill, and he

(40:47):
has been.
He's now on what day is ittoday in january, it's january
28th, so he spent 28 nights in ahaven tent so far this year,
right, and he's like postingevery single you know night that
he does it.
How many nights?
28, so he every night of theyear.
His goal is to spend the firstmonth of the year sleeping in a
haven tent every night and he'sin utah, it's been cold, yeah,

(41:08):
and he's posting and he's justhaving like the time of his life
and and so it's fun to.
Yeah, as a see, as somebody whocreated a product, to see it
being enjoyed to that extent isjust awesome.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
One thing I want that number, though that 35% number
is is is actually pretty crazy,because we always talk about
expanding your market, and thefact that you're getting 35 of
your customer base that are notcampers in an in a camping space
to come and buy your product, Iwould say, is that's got to be

(41:39):
pretty significantly yeah, Ithink it's shocking, which means
you're like you're starting tobreak outside of this, like, hey
, we're just targeting campers,like people that want and are
camping now to get a betterproduct to people who aren't
even engaging in the activity.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
You've broken out of your addressable market right.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, or the obtainable.
The obtainable into the totaland you're expanding it, yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
And I think that's why the Safari has done so well,
because with our other tentsthey are focused on hey, you're
already camping, here's a betterway to sleep outside.
And then this one goes hey, youdon't even have to leave your
car, you can just camp rightthere at the campsite and you're
gonna have a great night'ssleep.
And it makes it really you know, approachable, I guess.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
How, how long does it take to set them up?
Because that's another painpoint for people, right?

Speaker 3 (42:22):
yeah, so what I hate about setting up tents is you
have to set them up twice.
You set up the tent first, thenyou have to put up the rain fly
right and all the poles and youkind of you know, slide them
through the little deals and, uh, hammocks are confusing as well
, cause you set up the hammockfirst and then then the rain fly
and you have to guide out inall these different places.
This has two connection points.
So you put straps around trees,you connect the hammock.

(42:44):
Uh, you'll have to put the rainfly on the first time, but then
you never have to take off therain fly again, so it stays on
there the whole time.
Yeah, and so I can do it.
Honestly, what takes thelongest is blowing up the pad
and you have a pump for that?
and the stuff sack for the padis also like a, you know, a
bellows, so you can use it as apump bag, and so we tried to

(43:04):
just go through every single.
And then, if you look at howlike baggy the bag is, you, you
know, for the hammock, a lot oftimes when, uh, when, you buy a
tent, it looks really good onthe shelf and it looks really
small.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
You can shove it back in there.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
So we went and made the stuff sacks loose so that
it's easy to get back in, likejust I tried to just solve all
the pains that I had as aconsumer quick setup, easy
takedown and just tried to putit all into one product.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
It's fun to be able to do.
Do you think you can get thistent set up in under?

Speaker 3 (43:32):
five minutes?
Oh for sure, yeah, I can do itin like two or three.
What about the like?
One of us, one of you guys'first time might take you five
or six or so.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Which is crazy, right , because I just went camping as
somebody who set up the sametent over and over, you know,
september or something like that, right, and it took me 15 to 20
minutes to set up like a five,six man tent well, that's what I
wanted to ask, because that'sone of the other biggest pain
points and, putting it, away toois a dream, because if it rains

(44:04):
, like how muddy it is, like I'mgonna have to set this up in my
basement and let it dry out,like, ah, this, you can keep it
off the ground the whole time,just kind of roll it back up,
then put it back in the baggystuff sack and you're good to go
.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Like it, we try to make it just and you're not like
worried about the dirt and yeah, that's pretty well, here's
what I love about.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
I want to kind of go back to this product development
process.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
I think give you guys haven tense, I might have, I
might have sold to here, right,yeah, you, you've already sold
me.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
I'm going to have to get some for my family.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Grayson over here sold too.
So this is what I love.
So, mark and I, we talk aboutthis all the time and I bring it
up all the time.
Maybe you guys get annoyed bythis, but there's this good
different chart that I bring upall the time and essentially
it's not just about productdevelopment, it's about
marketing campaigns, it'sanything you're doing as a
business.
You should put it through thisgood different kind of like

(44:52):
exercise, which is to say, ifyou have an X and Y access and
you have different quadrants,right, I think, if I remember
right, uh, the Y accessrepresents good and the X access
represents different and in inyour world, right, you could
have.
You go on this fun excursionwith your family, where you're
traveling, and let's say, maybeyou're staying in some hotels,

(45:15):
maybe you're staying in some,you know, maybe you're camping a
little bit.
I don't know if you were, butanyways, you have this idea for
a hammock.
But what you could have doneand what most people do is they
say you know what I shouldcreate a tent?
Right, like, I want a tent, andokay.
You know what I should create atent?

Speaker 2 (45:33):
right, like, I want a tent, and okay you know, every
tent is how do I just keepmaking the same?

Speaker 1 (45:35):
yeah, yeah, like the point I'm trying to make is you
got coleman out there who makesa 10.
You probably know all the othertent names, right, and and
every tent is the same, at theend of the day they have some
different features.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
That's like well, you've got like the spring bar
versions, and then you've got alittle more lightweight then you
have the white lightweight, oroh hey we added.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
We added, uh like, led lights to it, which are cool
features, but are theydifferent enough to make
somebody say I'm gonna buy that?
Or are they different enough tomake somebody say, oh, we just
saw coleman do this, we're gonnaadd it to it?
So it's very easy, you know.
So that's what I love aboutthis is like you didn't go down
the route of which, like what isthe easiest barrier of entry,

(46:14):
which is everyone loves tents.
Therefore, what if I created atent brand and I just added some
additional features, but, atthe end of the day, that
wouldn't be different enough forme to be like I'm going to go
with Haven tents versus guesswhat?
I just walked by Costco, sawColeman tent.
Right, it's only 300 bucksversus the 550.
This one costs, I'm going tobuy that one, I know Coleman, it
fits my family, et cetera, etcetera.

(46:35):
And so I love how you you madeout of necessarily been going
through the good different.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
When I watched your video about this, it's like oh,
that's why.
Yeah, that's why we sell a lotof hammocks.
Totally Right and different.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, you've based your entire product development
strategy off of a core problemthat the the most savant campers
have and the most basic campershave, right, which is you still
like, no matter what, like,like you said, with the hammock,
like it's a crappy sleep.

(47:08):
I do it because I love flyfishing so much that I'm okay
with a bad sleep.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, like I love fly fishing enough, and it's
usually a day, it's a two daything I have.
I have kids like I'm not goingto be spending like five days
out there, right?

Speaker 1 (47:21):
So it's like where I'm like I need to get there and
back, and I don't love flyfishing enough to justify the
bad night sleep, so I justrather not go, even though I
love the outdoors.
And every time I go camping I'malways like ken's that's my
wife like why don't we do thismore often?

(47:42):
And she's like well, because wedon't like to sleep intense
yeah that's why we don't do this.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
That's how we might go.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Okay, yeah, well, now you're gonna do it more often
so I love that you based yourentire product development
strategy off of this.
Hey, everyone the good camp,the experienced campers and not
everyone has a hard timesleeping.
Yep, and I think that that'sthe brilliance of what you're
doing with haven and and everyproduct that you're creating.
It still solves that problem,right?

(48:10):
Hey, I'm trying to make thisone light that's a new feature
like a little bit lighter, butat the end of the day, it's
still the same thing.
It's helping people sleepbetter and have a better
experience at night, which thenhelps them have a better
experience in the day, like yousaid.
So the good different chart isdefeated.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
It is.
It is undefeated.
That's a quadrant.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
That's a quadrant.
I like that Right there.
So how has?
Okay, we talked a ton aboutproduct development, the other
thing that I've been loving thatyou've done really well, and
I'm like wanting to ask youquestions, but I'm also like
answering questions in my headas I'm like thinking about this
has creating content been somuch easier for you?

(48:50):
Because the product just tellsthe story itself?

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
And what I found as a content creator in the travel
space was man, my content is theproduct here and I'm going to
have to do this like forever.
Yeah, if we grow this audience,if we become outdoor you know
family travel content creators,there's no tangible good here
and the second that the viewsdrop off of a video, like I'm

(49:17):
out of business.
You know, I got to go out thereand create more and more and
more.
But what that year of traveland constant content creation
taught me how to do was how tomake mediocre content very
efficiently.
And I I say mediocre.
If you're not a content personand you see some of the stuff
that that we do at haven tents,you're gonna think it's probably
pretty good, yeah.

(49:37):
But then you see like actualcontent creators and like with
their transitions and theirmasks and all their stuff, it's
like wow, that looks amazing.
Yeah, and I don't put in theenergy for that.
But I do it quickly yeah, oneexample is we were at the
outdoor uh, or sorry, at theWestern hunt expo, uh, which is
a show that we do here in Utahevery year, and I was kind of I

(50:02):
had a tripod set up when peoplewere getting in the tent I was
filming this kind of reactionvideo of just first impressions,
and I filmed like 20testimonials one day and then
that night I smashed themtogether and made like a little
bit of a reaction video, yeah,and that started to do pretty
well on on Tik TOK, yeah.
And then somebody asked, oh, Iwant to see the whole
presentation, yeah, and so mywife Kenzie, who's also McKenzie

(50:24):
, was uh helping me that day,you know, uh with with the booth
, and so she filmed just thenext person who came by, yeah,
and she filmed them.
This gal got in the hammock.
I gave my whole spiel, my wholepitch, and that night went, cut
it, posted it and that blew up.
For us.

(50:45):
It's done collectively acrossall the different channels that
we have.
It has over 40 million views.
Nice, this presentation.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
I know exactly what video you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
People are electing to watch me give a presentation
talking about how great thehammock is, you know, and anyway
, like the lift that that's donefor us has been huge and so,
like being comfortable in frontof the camera came just because
I'm too lazy to try to find, youknow, talent to go and be in my

(51:14):
stuff for me.
It's much easier for me just tobring a tripod Totally and then
being able to put out contentthat's okay but like good enough
, yeah, pretty quickly has beenhuge for us.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
How did you?

Speaker 2 (51:26):
get comfortable with good enough.
Was it the travel?
Yeah, man, how do?

Speaker 3 (51:29):
I get comfortable with good enough.
Was it the travel?
Yeah, man, how do I getcomfortable with good enough?
I guess I'm not, because Ithink everyone overthinks it.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Oh for sure.
Yeah, and I'm not saying Iwould do it too.
I don't produce a lot ofcontent, but when I think about
content, I think I overthink it.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
It's a good question.
Actually, this is a goodquestion.
I like it because you're right,Everyone's like, oh well, the
edit's not good or I didn't getthe good shot.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
I said something weird yeah.
I don't like the sound of myvoice.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
It doesn't seem on brand or whatever.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, how do you make those decisions?
Because I've done some stuffI've put a lot of thought into
and a lot of care and it justdoesn't do well at all.
Yeah, of care, and it just likedoesn't do well at all.
Yeah, and then there's that onevideo that's pretty organic and
it's just and it blows up, youknow, half-baked.
So well, I don't think this isgonna work and, honestly, having
tiktok is kind of like mytesting ground sure has been

(52:24):
great.
It's like I don't care as muchabout tiktok because I think
that we have a good followingthere it's like 130, some odd
thousand but at the same time Ihaven't put any like weight on
it because it was going to behere.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
It was going to be there, like who?

Speaker 3 (52:37):
knows what's happening with it.
So I'd like like I don't mindthrowing stuff at tiktok and
seeing what sticks, yeah, andthen, if it like, I'll kind of,
you know, refine it and put iton the on instagram, and then
I'll put it on shorts, so I'llend up posting something three,
three different times, maybedoing like a slight improvement.
Yeah, but I guess it's justlowering standards, like not

(53:00):
saying every video has to belike elite quality edits.
Yeah, has been awesome.
Yeah, and we have had a fewcreators make high quality stuff
for us and I post it and itjust falls flat, like it just
doesn't convey what we're like.
Our message of this is a smallbusiness.
Yeah, like a family, you knowcompany that's.

(53:21):
This guy's going to be outthere with his kids making
videos.
Yeah, about hammock tents, likethat has kind of become our
brand, yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
I mean, we've been saying this for the last.
What are we on year three ofthis?

Speaker 2 (53:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
We are, I think.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Are we?

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Yeah, like for the last three years we've been
saying founders always just needto be in the videos, like I
know it's hard and some peopledon't want it, but no one does
it better.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
No one does it better .
You know, like, yes, getcreators involved, right, like
you said.
You've got this guy who's doingthe 31 days of Haven, like
that's awesome Creative.
Yeah for sure, right, andthat's reassurance.
And and I would imagine youknow you, you said that, or do
you do post-purchase surveys atall?
We do, yeah, like I imagine.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
Not like in super in-depth ones to be honest yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
But, I would imagine that if you ask the question,
how did you first hear aboutHaven Tents?
I'd be willing to bet a lot ofmoney that your number.
I don't know what your ad spendis, but between one and two
position is friend or familymember.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Right Guaranteed and my guess is it's over 30%.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
You know of those people.
So what I think is really coolabout going back to this I just
keep circling back to product iswe just like the client that we
just went and visited, thatwhole story we the shebang about
us traveling.
You know we had a hugeconversation about them creating
content and becoming anauthority in the space where

(54:50):
they have a really, reallyawesome product, and one of the
founders you know what she wassaying was she's like we know we
need to, but it's so hard tothink of the content, it's so
hard for us to take like that'sthe hardest part is like
thinking about what we're goingto do.
It's not even producing, it'snot even editing, it's like what
should we do?
Should we do and and part, partof it, and and they would I'm

(55:12):
not saying anything that wouldbe disrespectful to them.
They don't have much of adifferent product.
It's the same thing a lot ofpeople sell.
You know they're notmanufacturing it on their own,
they're like more of adistributor of it and so they
don't have anything realdifferent.
And what's so nice about havingsomething that's different is
you probably don't have to thinkmuch on.
I'm not trying to take away fromthe content you're creating but

(55:34):
, like you know, somebodycomments like let's see the
whole thing.
Okay, cool, that's a video.
You know you could almost turnevery one of your questions in
your comments into the next like45 days worth of content
strategy.
And that's the beauty of beinga having product market fit and
solving problems is not only doyou connect with a customer
better, but it's so much easierto just create content.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Like.
It's just like product.
Good product development solvesevery single problem.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Well, you just showed us a video of your of you QAing
a product.
Right yeah, with sand or notsandbags salt bags yeah.
Right to test the actual weightcapacity of a lightweight
hammock, which is like that'scontent.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
And it's a story too.
That's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Yeah, I'm not going to give away the details, but
Nah, wild stuff, wild.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
And so my cousin Blake, who we've already talked
about, and, and you know, mycousin matt these are, these are
my besties that I do myadventures with, and so we used
to do adventures anyway, but nowthat I have this outdoor
company, it all of a suddenfalls under the the thing of
haven.
Yeah, and so we love using ourproducts.
We'll go.
Last year we went to uh, was itlast year?
No, two years ago we did apackrafting trip in Alaska.

(56:51):
So we go to Alaska, we do thisawesome trip, we film content
the whole time, and then I getlike the long form you know,
youtube video and then a bunchof short form content and like,
when we're just out there usingour product, I'm filming, I'm,
you know, and then you justyou're able to cut that up and
put into all sorts of differentway, and that content ends up

(57:12):
serving you for a year or so.
You know, each trip.
And so the IRS is making.
You can easily see that thistrip to Alaska was a business
trip.
Yeah, yeah, it was a work trip,but just being out there and
using the product and if you, ifyou have a product, that's not
as weird as a haven tent, likejust filming your product in use
and then narrating the story.

(57:33):
One of the best videos that Idid recently was I just set up a
tent and I had, I just talkedabout it as I was setting it up,
yeah, and then posted thatthat's and that did really well,
yeah, um, and so if it's any, Ithink you can do that for any
product just talk about it usingthe product.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
It has this like asmr quality where people just kind
of get like sucked into watchingthe process of a product in use
which has been helpful, but theasmr trend is kind of
interesting, right, becausepeople love watching how things
are made and so it makes a lotof sense, like, why, like, if
you start from the beginning,like just like box openings even

(58:09):
well, and it's kind of like ahook right, like if you're
saying something, you'restrapping something around a
tree.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
They're like what's this guy doing?

Speaker 3 (58:14):
yeah, you know what I mean, like it's they always
think that that would apply toand the nearly any product have
you done like a strict asmr adyet no, I, I have not but that's
it.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
that's a good idea.
Yeah, I need to do one becauseyou have like the zip, because
you have like the zip, and thenyou have the rap on the tree For
sure you have like this noiseright the canvas on canvas.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Canvas on canvas, yeah, and then the air.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
And then the air.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
And then, like the last bit of ASMR, I might have
to kind of dull that down alittle and, like the last bit of
ASMR should be you laying andit being like a.
Well, it's like that cushion,yeah.
Well, it's like that cushion,yeah, you hear, like the cushion
and then the last thing is hislet him like exhaling.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
You know, yeah, you should try that.
Awesome there it is.
You can have that idea for free.
Sweet, I love it.
Well, dude, this has beenawesome.
Any like, uh, any tips, like ifyou had like a last minute
thing, a last minute piece ofadvice that you would give to
like you're a listener of thepodcast, right, right, so, as a
listener of the podcast, likewhat's something that you'd want
to hear if you could go backfour years ago for yourself that
you've learned I mean, the moretime you spend learning in the

(59:23):
beginning of your business, thebetter.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
And I know that's probably not talking about my
product in particular, but justlike my daily you know, maybe
it's not a daily, but everycouple of days watching your,
your videos, like it's awesomeand so connecting with the, the,
the e-comm community, andconnecting with people that are
out there influencing and likewhen I started this, I knew how

(59:45):
to sell, I knew how to tell astory, but I didn't know
anything about ads or productdesigner, like all of this stuff
.
I remember sitting on anairplane and somebody told me
about SketchUp, which is likethe Google tool for 3D modeling,
and it was like, wait, what youcould do this.
And I had spent hours buildingpaper models and doing all this
nonsense and just like so.

(01:00:06):
If you're open, if you justacknowledge the fact that you
don't know anything and you'reopen, you go to the source of
information and you just likebecome a student again.
And I have young kids that arein school and they're they're
learning.
We become adults.
We kind of stop, and so maybethe one bit of advice to look in
the camera is to like become astudent.
Cool yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
I love that Super smart.
I like that, too.
Be coach.
Yeah, I love that super smart.
I like that, too.
Be coachable.
Yeah, and and and.
That doesn't just necessarilymean what I like you're saying.
That doesn't necessarily meango read all the self-help books,
no right.
It means, like, go meet andtalk to people like for sure
like you said, like hey, I'vebeen wasting all this time
drawing or whatever, and now, oh, I got sketchup.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
You know my ability to that changes everything for
me iterate and make changes onproducts.
It went from glacial to lightspeed.
The second, I learned about atool.
Totally, totally Very cool, soyou never know when that aha
moment's going to come, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah, I like that analogy because it's similar to
going camping, right, or goingon a big hiking trip.
You have to just enjoy theexploration because you're
always going to encounter thingsthat you don't know or that are
kind of interesting, and you'realways going to have to problem
solve a little bit along theway.
So, being coachable, I thinksometimes people think of like I

(01:01:21):
need to find a coach, yeah, andme, yeah, maybe a coach might
help you right, mentor, that'sgreat, like we're not saying
don't do that.
But what we are saying is youjust have to enjoy the process
and be open to changing the wayyou're approaching it.
Right Like, if you're hiking upa mountain or if you're if
you're a rock climber,especially like rock climbers
you might have to change yourapproach on the face to to get

(01:01:44):
to where you want to go.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
You can't just always go exactly the way you think
you're going to be able to go upthe mountain Right.
Always go exactly the way youthink you're going to be able to
go up the mountain, right.
So change your approach.
Just be agile, just realizelike it's not a straight way up,
right, it's going to be somezigzagging, like you're going to
have to make some adjustmentsalong the way, and if you're
flexible, you'll be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Yeah, and also acknowledge that, like your
chapter one is different than achapter 20 from somebody else.
We get that all the the time.
Like I'll reach out to peopleand I'll be like, hey, for
example, come on our podcast,like I'm only doing, like, oh,
like I'm only doing 5 000 soundslike well, it doesn't matter.
Like you could be at the verybeginning stages, like that,
that doesn't really matter.
You know, I think a lot ofpeople get really almost

(01:02:24):
embarrassed at those earlystages to go out and reach out
for help because they're like,oh, I, I don't want them to know
how inexperienced I am or howlittle revenue I've made or how.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
You know what I mean when it's like or like we work
with brands that are scared toshow behind the scenes stuff
because it's like well then,they're going to see that we're
not like this big polished brand.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Totally yeah, it's like that doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Actually, like I think that's probably why people
would want such a strength and,honestly, as a startup and our
first production runs had someissues, you know, but the amount
of leeway that people givestartups is incredible and the
amount of patience versus like aColeman or whatever, like if
you, if they have, you know, 30%of their tents have an issue,
like it's going to be huge andthey're going to be blasted for
it, but like they justunderstand and, of course, we've
done everything to make itright and we continue to improve
on everything.
But, yeah, lean into it.

(01:03:14):
I mean, if you're a startup andyou're new, that is one of your
biggest advantages and one ofthe biggest points of your story
.
The other thing I think thatwe've done well is we've found
out who we are.
We are comfort outside and wetell that story.
Yeah, we just focus on that.
Like we can get bogged down infeatures and talking about, like

(01:03:35):
, different elements of ourproduct, but at the end of the
day, what compels action is thatcomfort yeah, messaging is
everything people.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
People underestimate the power of messaging.
And then who your audience islike and defining who you are
can change changes everything.
You don't even have to changeyour product and you can change
those things and you can go fromnothing to something really
quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
So yeah, I love that too, because a lot of people
focus on who their customer isand they kind of forget, like,
who they actually are.
Like you, get caught up in thisidea of who you think your
customers are when it's likewell, who are you actually like?

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
what is your company?

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
and you just said it.
You've distilled it down tocomfort outside, yeah, which
allows you to now focus on well,who?
Who are we attracting?

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
and who can we attract?
How can we test differentmessaging, etc.
Etc.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
So well, dude, thank you so much.
This has been awesome.
Where can?
People find haven on instagram,on tiktok.
Uh, those are our main.
Haven tentscom is our site, butour our handles are Haven tents
Cool.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Awesome.
We'll go follow them.
Uh, like seriously such a coolproduct, uh, and this has been
so awesome.
So thank you so much and uh,thanks for having me on.
We appreciate everybody forlistening, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Thank you, and uh this might be the only episode
that I don't listen to out ofyour guys, but thanks for having
me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
You're going to learn a lot from yourself.
You're going to be like oh, Ididn't know how smart I was.
That's really cool All rightguys, thank you so much and we
will uh, we'll see you next week.
Thank you so much for listeningto the unstoppable marketer
podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from youbecause we always want to make

(01:05:09):
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.
I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you, and we will see younext week.