Building a Subscription Box Service With Kina McAllister (091)

Life Skills That Matter | Create Work That Works For You

English - April 03, 2017 08:00 - 41 minutes - 24 MB - ★★★★★ - 140 ratings
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Previous Episode: Bringing the Athlete's Mindset to Business With Scott Jones (090)

Next Episode: Find Your Superpower + Beat Procrastination With Peter Shallard (092)

Kina McAllister, CEO of STEMbox.com shares how she built her subscription box service of science experiments for girls.
The post Building a Subscription Box Service With Kina McAllister (091) appeared first on Life Skills That Matter.

Are you a in a profession where you feel there are no other options than the career path before you? Kina McAllister once felt the same way. She is a biologist. She once thought the only way she could use her skills and knowledge was in scientific research. Listen to find out how she started her own subscription box service.

The career path that lay before no longer seemed like the best fit for her.

She was passionate about science, but felt marginalized, so she starting experimenting with a business of her own.

She founded mySTEMbox over 2 years ago to get girls between the ages of 7 and 12 more excited about science. Get this, she’s shipped over 6,000 boxes last year and they each go for around $36 a box!

Few lessons that pop out from our conversation include:

Why she decided to build the product she did to solve the problem she wanted to solve and how she built her first prototype.
How she landed her first sales using Kickstarter and how a little help from Melinda Gates boosted her sales.
How she managed her transition from her full-time job to working full time on her business.

As I listened to Kina, I couldn’t help but see how many similarities there were between the scientific approach of testing a hypothesis and the process entrepreneurs use to validate their ideas.

Life Skills That Matter In This Episode

Experimenting.
Self-directed learning.
Building community.

How Kina Works and Thinks

Wake up time: 8:30am – 9:00am
Ideal work environment: Away from home, but it has to be cozy.
Superpower: Being calm and “straight-faced” when she’s furious.
Favorite productivity tool: One Note
90-day goal: Get out of low cash flow by selling more subscriptions during the first quarter of 2017.

Inspirational Quotes

“You have to learn to be creative.”

“I don’t want to be exclusive, I want to be inclusive.”

Coaching Advice

Kina utilizes Facebook ads and they’ve had a direct impact on her sales. She shares this advice for getting started with Facebook Ads:

1) Ask for help: Facebook’s support team for their ads is very helpful and available.

2) Experiment: Try different things with the ads and work to narrow down your demographic.

Resources + Bonus Materials

What is STEM Education?

How to Start a Subscription Box Service

Kickstarter

The Intern