Proof to Product
405 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★★ - 261 ratingsRanked in the top 1% of ALL podcasts, the Proof to Product podcast is your trusted resource for sustainable business growth - especially if you make and sell physical products!
Join Katie Hunt, each week as she shares strategies & solutions to enhance your sales & marketing so that you’re building a business that supports your best life.
If you’ve ever asked yourself can I make money selling physical products? Am I ready to sell my products wholesale to stores like Target, Anthropologie, Nordstrom or Barnes & Noble? When should I consider hiring a sales team or sales reps? Can I really turn my passion into profits? Whether you’re a just starting out on your business journey or you’ve been at it a while growing an empire, this show is for you.
Proof to Product is like on-demand business school for product sellers spanning a wide range of industries. Whether you’re in home decor, apparel, beauty, food & beverage, hand-made items, jewelry, consumer gifts or the stationery world, you’ll gather new ideas each week to help you grow your profit, build your team and lead with integrity.
Host Katie Hunt and her guests bring you actionable ways to expand your product line, manufacturing overseas, optimize your e-commrce websites on Shopify, Faire, Etsy, Abound, Tundra, Squarespace or in brick & mortar locations. How to start or scale wholesale sales including pitching stores, wholesale outreach, trade show exhibition, working with sales reps, managing inventory, warehousing product, sales systems, wholesale follow-up strategies and working with key accounts. Marketing strategies for small businesses including content creation, leveraging tik tok and instagram tactics without feeling burned out, why you can’t rely solely on social media for sales and why email marketing systems on platforms like Klaviyo, Flodesk and Active Campaign are so powerful. Listen in as Katie and our guest experts help you strategize and tackle your biggest business goals.
Host Katie Hunt brings a unique perspective to entrepreneurship. Since 2011, she’s helped thousands of product brands get their products on the shelves of their favorite retail stores through her Paper Camp program (www.prooftoproduct.com/papercamp). Prior to that she worked in the corporate world for over a decade leading business development and marketing teams. She has two MBAs - one in finance and one in marketing. And, she owned & operated her own product based business for over 8 years, selling her products to stores throughout the world from her garage. Katie knows the struggles you face as a product based business and she’s here to pull back the curtain and share her best kept secrets so that you don’t have to learn things the hard way.
Find our free trainings & resources for product based business owners at www.prooftoproduct.com/resources
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Episodes
338 | Exiting and Acquiring a Business with Kiwi Schloffel & Meghan Hopkins Sokorai
April 16, 2024 13:00 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBIf you have ever considered exiting your business or even acquiring another person's business, today's podcast episode is for you. My guests today are two of my clients and also friends: Meghan Hopkins Sokorai of And Here We Are, and Kiwi Schloffel of Your Gal Kiwi. Last year, Kiwi made the decision that she wanted to exit her product-based business and specifically exit the day-to-day operations of manufacturing. During this episode, these ladies share their individual and collective sto...
337 | Exclusivity and Ethics in Retail with Kimberley Yurkiewicz, Measure Twice
April 09, 2024 13:00 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBOne of the things that sets Proof to Product apart from other people teaching about wholesale is the breadth and depth of not only my personal knowledge but also the fact that we bring in a variety of other perspectives from buyers to sales reps to consultants and manufacturers. This wide lens allows us to share best practices and current trends that we're seeing in the market currently. We're not sharing one narrow viewpoint about how to sell wholesale. We have amassed decades of knowled...
336 | Utilizing Abandoned Cart Email Automations to Drive Sales with Katie Hunt
April 02, 2024 13:00 - 10 minutes - 9.42 MBDid you know that almost 70% of shoppers abandon their online shopping carts and don't follow through with a sale? That means that only 3 out of 10 of your customers who go to your website and load up their shopping cart complete their purchase. The same report from Baymard Institute said that more than $18,000,000,000 in e-commerce sales are lost annually due to abandoned carts. That is a whole lot of money. And yet, only some independent product brands are utilizing abandoned cart fol...
335 | The Changing Landscape of In-Person Retail Markets with Emily Chiang, Danella McKinnon, and Kate Pinto
March 26, 2024 13:00 - 58 minutes - 54.1 MBOur focus here at Proof to Product is teaching people how to successfully sell their products to the wholesale market. But many of our community members sell through multiple sales channels, including licensing, custom work, direct-to-consumer online sales, and in-person retail markets. For today's episode, we're sharing a portion of a recent coffee chat that we hosted inside our LABS program. It was a roundtable on in-person retail markets, and we had 3 of our community members weighing ...
334 | Expanding into 1,000 Stores with Brittany O'Brien, Brittany Paige
March 19, 2024 13:00 - 34 minutes - 31.2 MBThe last time Brittany O'Brien was on the podcast was back in 2022, and we were talking about how she scaled her business to 500 wholesale accounts. Earlier this year, Brittany crossed a new milestone. Her products are now sold in over 1,000 stores, and today, we're going to dig into what the last year and a half has looked like for her. Specifically, we're talking about customer acquisition versus customer retention strategies, fair SEO, and how trade shows have played a part in her subst...
333 | Scaling without Employees with Beth Roszkowski, Tiny Hooray
March 12, 2024 13:00 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MBWe have shared many incredible business growth stories here on the Proof to Product podcast. One thing that I always try to emphasize is that business is not one size fits all. Every business will look different, operate differently, and have different goals they're working towards. To build a profitable, successful long-term business, we have to be very intentional about the choices that we make. And that includes where we invest our funds, what type of support we bring into our business,...
332 | Rebuilding Self-Trust and Confidence as a Business Owner with Ginny Krauss & Elli Runkles, Supported CEO (Part 2)
March 05, 2024 14:00 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBLast week on episode 331, you met my friends Ginny and Elli from the Supported CEO. They very candidly shared their stories of experiencing burnout in entrepreneurship, including what that was like, what they felt, and they shared their journey back from burnout and what they did to get to where they are today. Today is part 2 in the discussion with Elli and Ginny, and they are sharing strategies and tactics to help you avoid burnout and rebuild self-confidence and trust. You will lear...
331 | Back From Burnout with Ginny Krauss & Elli Runkles, Supported CEO (Part 1)
February 27, 2024 14:00 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBThe topic of burnout is popping up a lot in my business circles. People are tired, and they are struggling with decision fatigue. Many people I talk to are questioning whether to even continue with their business or whether they should make an exit, but these types of conversations typically happen behind closed doors, or worse, they don't happen at all, and people end up struggling alone in silence, which is not what I want for any of you. That all changes today. Ginny Krauss and Elli Ru...
330 | How to Have Tough Conversations with Your Team with Tatiana O'Hara, T. O'Hara Consulting
February 20, 2024 14:00 - 36 minutes - 33.3 MBIf you're looking for ways to be a stronger leader within your business or you're considering expanding your team, please block off some quiet time to carefully listen today. Our guest for this episode is Tatiana O'Hara, a team and leadership development consultant who helps successful yet overwhelmed online business owners create the structure needed for their team and daily operations so that they can focus on scaling sustainably. As a corporate leader turned business coach, she has ...
329 | How These 9 Businesses Have Grown Since Attending Paper Camp
February 13, 2024 14:00 - 16 minutes - 23.2 MBWe are gearing up for the 43rd round of Paper Camp and we are so excited! This is our wholesale intensive program, and I wanted to do something fun for this week's podcast episode to celebrate this milestone and the fact that enrollment for Paper Camp is currently open. I asked our past Paper Camp students to answer 1 question: How have you and your business grown since participating in Paper Camp? The responses we received were incredible. In this episode, you're gonna hear from 9 ...
328 | An inside look at what Paper Camp is like
February 06, 2024 14:00 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBHave you ever wondered what it's like to attend our Paper Camp program? If so, today's episode is for you! I am sharing an inside peek into one of our Paper Camp coaching calls. This one is with Alex Gagne of Chez Gagné. Alex has been a longtime member of our Paper Camp community. When she first attended as a student, she had been in business a little less than 2 years. She was working out of her living room and had designed a collection of 80 SKUs. Alex knew that wholesale was her end...
327 | How to apply for a Paper Camp scholarship with Katie Hunt
January 30, 2024 14:00 - 6 minutes - 6.93 MBIf you’re listening today that means you’re likely interested in applying for our Paper Camp scholarship! Giving back is one of our core values here at Proof to Product and we give back through our time, knowledge as well as financial scholarships. Since 2011, we’ve awarded over $275,000+ in scholarship funds to creative entrepreneurs who sell physical products to the wholesale market. These brands had big dreams of seeing their products on the shelves of their favorite stores and they h...
326 | The State of Trade Shows in 2024 with Katie Hunt
January 23, 2024 14:00 - 14 minutes - 13.7 MBI have been doing so much good content for other people and I’m doing my best to bring it back around so that you all have access to it and know about these resources. Recently, the team of Aeolidia asked me to weigh in with my thoughts on the changing landscape of wholesale trade shows for their blog. The post features comments from Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia, Abby Glassenbeg of Craft Industry Alliance, Morgan Cros, the founder of Original’s Duckhead, and myself — all of us shedding light...
325 | How To Plan Out New Wholesale Product Releases With Divya Guruju, Mellowworks
January 16, 2024 14:00 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBI’ve been thinking a lot about how our past work experience and general lived experience shape how we start and build our businesses. For me, I spent 12 years in the corporate world leading business development and strategic marketing teams for large law firms before starting my product line. That time in my life taught me about project management, budgeting, and how important relationships are in business. These are lessons that I carried into my product brand and also into the way we run P...
324 | Your 2024 business checklist for product brands
January 09, 2024 14:00 - 14 minutes - 13.4 MBHappy New Year! I hope you had a restful and relaxing holiday season. I enjoyed a lot of downtime with my family and also worked on a few things behind the scenes to get Proof to Product ready for 2024. I thought it might be helpful to share some of the things that I look at as I’m wrapping up one year and starting a new one. So today’s episode is going to focus on your New Year checklist. I’m going to share 10 things that work for me in hopes that they will work for you too. Today's e...
We're on winter break!
December 26, 2023 14:00 - 1 minute - 4.06 MBThe Proof to Product podcast team and I are practicing what we preach and the podcast is taking a winter break! We will be back with a new podcast episode on Tuesday, January 9, and we have some incredible things lined up for you! While we're gone, be sure to dip back into the archives. We have over 323 incredible episodes to help you strengthen your business. Have a great two weeks and I will see you on January 9th!
323 | 6 Reasons Why You Should Not Be Doing Monthly Wholesale Promotions
December 19, 2023 14:00 - 14 minutes - 20.3 MBThere is a lot of noise on the internet. Lots of gurus, experts, and other people claim you have to do things a certain way in order to be successful. We see ads on social media telling us there is a magic formula or 5-step process that will make all of our dreams come true. It seems that a new business coach is popping up on the scene every day with some new system or lived experience that we have to follow. I firmly believe that there is room for everyone and that we all have unique e...
322 | From Fear to Strategy: Navigating the Entrepreneurial Roadmap with Katie Hunt
December 12, 2023 14:00 - 43 minutes - 60 MBHey everyone! I was recently on Shirlee Fisher's podcast, The Tillage Podcast, where we talked about a variety of topics: how to navigate challenges during a crisis, how to make informed decisions with my four-factor framework, how to embrace knowing your numbers as a neutral tool for success and so much more. I had such a good time that I asked Shirlee if I could air the episode on our podcast, so that's this week's episode! You can check out more great episodes on Shirlee's podcast,...
321 | The Changing Landscape of Wholesale Trade Shows with Store Owner Audrey Woollen, Urbanic
December 05, 2023 14:00 - 40 minutes - 37.4 MBIt’s no secret that wholesale buying patterns and in-person trade shows have shifted substantially over the last few years. Where buyers were once placing fewer, but larger orders a couple of times a year - oftentimes at trade shows - they are now placing more frequent, smaller orders throughout the year both online and at in-person markets. As someone who talks to both wholesale brands and buyers every single day, I have a unique viewpoint that lets me see some of these industry shifts at...
320 | The challenges of bringing a new product to life with Zeba Parkar, Treleaf
November 28, 2023 14:00 - 26 minutes - 24 MBThe best products solve a problem or create an emotional connection. The ideas for these products stem from our own pain points or challenges as well as the joys in our lives. That is what our guest today did when she brought a new product to market. Today's guest is a scientist by training, a creative tinkerer, and a natural show entrepreneur. Zeba Parkar is the owner of Treleaf, a product line that was created from Zeba's own needs as a plant owner and lover during the pandemic. Zeba...
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 21, 2023 14:00 - 2 minutes - 1.38 MBThe podcast is taking a break this week so that our team can celebrate Thanksgiving with our families and friends. We will be back next week with an interview with Paper Camp alumni & LABS member Zeba Parkar of Treleaf who is going to share what it was like bringing her laser-cut wood trellises to market — a brand new product in the plant category. If you’re traveling this week, I’d love to keep you company. Be sure to dip back into the archives. We have over 319 incredible episodes to h...
319 | 2024 Market Trends For Product Based Businesses with Jessica Totillo Coster
November 14, 2023 14:00 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBWe recently did a two-part series on the State of Retail where I talked to two independent brick-and-mortar retail shop owners [episode 1] [episode 2]. This is important because we teach all of you how to sell wholesale to stores like Katie & Jen’s shops and it is important that you understand the challenges that they are facing and how they are adapting to the market and how that will trickle down and affect you as a manufacturer. Today I want to expand on that conversation with a collea...
Shop small this holiday season!
November 10, 2023 14:00 - 2 minutes - 1.19 MBToday I’m popping in with a call to action and that is… I want you to shop small this holiday season. To make this as easy as possible for you, we’ve put together a robust holiday gift guide featuring almost 300 independent brands from our Proof to Product Community. The Proof to Product gift guide includes a wide range of products including candles, apparel, jewelry, accessories, puzzles and games, home decor as well as gifts for pet lovers plant lovers, kids & babies and more. There ...
318 | You need to be selling each and every day with Katie Hunt
November 07, 2023 14:00 - 12 minutes - 16.8 MBYou know we like to keep things real with you here at Proof to Product and the truth is, there will be a lot of businesses that will close their doors over the next year. There will be lots of reasons for this. Some business owners will decide that they no longer want to navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Some will not be able to keep their doors open due to financial strain. Some business owners will shut down entire revenue streams to focus on something new. Maybe eve...
317 | The State of Independent Retail with Jen Palacio & Katie Wilson [Part 2]
October 31, 2023 13:00 - 25 minutes - 35.2 MBToday’s episode is part 2 of a two-part series on the state of independent retail right now. If you missed last week’s episode, I encourage you to check that one out first. In that episode, Katie Wilson of Crush & Touch and Jen Palacio of Tiny Turns Paperie shared feedback on their summer 2023 sales season, how they are preparing for 2023 Q3 holiday season, how the current economic climate is affecting business and what’s on the minds of shop keepers right now. Today we’re continuing ...
316 | The State of Independent Retail with Jen Palacio & Katie Wilson [Part 1]
October 24, 2023 13:00 - 36 minutes - 33.9 MBOver the last few months, I’ve had a lot of private conversations with store owners about the state of independent retail. They’ve confided in me about a wide range of challenges that they are facing - individually as well as collectively. Things like the economy, less foot traffic in their stores, staffing and cash flow limitations - have forced them to rethink how they are running their businesses and also planning for the future. Here at Proof to Product, we focus on teaching you how to...
315 | His candles (and your products) aren't for everyone with Jesse Regis, Virgins On Fire Candle Co
October 17, 2023 13:00 - 28 minutes - 39.8 MBWe are excited to host Jesse Regis from Virgins on Fire Candle Company and today, we talk to him about the evolution of his brand, the importance of finding community, and why your product is not for everyone. There is a quote by Amy Poehler that we've used at our events in the past, and it really encapsulates today's discussion. She said, “Find a group of people that challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them and it will change your life.” The idea of finding your peopl...
314 | Shopify Invests in Faire. What this means for you with Katie Hunt
October 10, 2023 13:00 - 12 minutes - 11.1 MBNews recently broke that Shopify was closing Handshake, its wholesale sales platform, and investing as a shareholder in Faire. Today’s episode is bringing you the news mixed in with a few of my thoughts on the topic. I will be doing a deeper analysis and sharing some research I’ve done within our LABS program - so definitely look for that if you’re one of our LABS members. As you listen today, please keep in mind that I have no ties to Shopify or Faire, other than I coach thousands of peop...
313 | How To Integrate Inclusive Marketing Into Your Customer Experience With Sonia Thompson
October 03, 2023 13:00 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MBMaking your customers feel like your product or service is tailored specifically for them is the key to inclusive marketing. Inclusive marketing expert Sonia Thompson joins us today on the podcast to share more on how to integrate inclusive marketing into your customer experience. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about Sonia’s career, how you can diversify your products and circle of influence, how to audit your customer experience to be more inclusive, the importance of considering how differe...
312 | Expanding into Licensing with Betsy Garcia, Bloomwolf Studio
September 26, 2023 13:00 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MBLicensing is an excellent opportunity to extend the reach of your brand and expand your business offerings. But finding the right partnership can be tricky, and it’s not always easy knowing where to start. Joining us today on the podcast to share her story and talk about her journey into licensing is return guest, Betsy Garcia. Betsy is the co-founder of Bloomwolf Studio, a paper goods company specializing in greeting cards, art prints, and other paper goods that she runs with her indispe...
311 | 4000% Increase in Wholesale Orders this Year with Lauren te Velde of Paper Farm Press
September 19, 2023 13:00 - 39 minutes - 54.2 MBToday’s podcast guest, Lauren te Velde Paper Farm Press, a woman-owned stationery and gift design shop in Kingsburg, CA, is a big fan of having a brand story that is strong and simple. She is intentionally focused on authentically pursuing wealth and believes money will follow because she wholeheartedly believes in putting better products out into the world. Each product Lauren creates expresses her great love for farming and her faith. Join the conversation as we hear from Lauren about h...
310 | What is a SKU and why do I need them? with Katie Hunt
September 12, 2023 13:00 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBDo you find yourself fresh in the wholesaling journey? Are you asking yourself whether you need stock-keeping unit (SKU) numbers? And if you do, how do you create them? In today’s episode, I’m answering some frequently asked questions often heard at Paper Camp, regarding creating and utilizing SKU systems. Listen in to hear tips on setting up your SKU system early on in your wholesaling journey and why I believes you shouldn’t overcomplicate your SKU systems. Today’s episode is brought...
309 | Business Contentment Over Business Growth with Brigida Swanson, Yardia
September 05, 2023 13:00 - 29 minutes - 40 MBChoosing business contentment over business growth can be a great reminder to all of us that there are seasons in business, and sometimes what we have is all that we really need or want. On this episode we have Brigida Swanson of Yardia, which is a nature-inspired gift and stationery company. Bridiga shares the journey for starting her business, while still pursuing her teaching career. She dives into what it was like venturing into wholesale, how she has experienced rapid growth, and ...
308 | Benefits & Challenges of Running Two Brands with Stephanie Clarke, Dahlia Press
August 29, 2023 13:00 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBIf there’s one constant in business, it’s change. But making big shifts as an entrepreneur can be pretty daunting. After all, it’s one thing to plan and strategize, but it’s quite another to take the leap and start implementing those steps. While we usually talk to people who are in the midst of making a big change, today we welcome a returning guest and Paper Camp alum, Stephanie Clarke, for a business update after making some major changes to her company back in 2019. After a decade ...
307 | Elevate Your Sales with These Two Wholesale Metrics with Katie Hunt
August 22, 2023 13:00 - 14 minutes - 21.5 MBThere’s no “easy mode” in business. Selling physical products is a lot of work and being a product entrepreneur requires grit, tenacity, and courage. Today’s episode is for seasoned wholesalers who might be experiencing a slower sales season this summer. If your sales have stalled, there are two metrics that you can tap into to build stronger relationships with your current accounts and sustainably scale your revenue for wholesale. Tune in and you’ll learn how to find opportunities for...
306 | Always learning, improving & evolving business with Jill Shephard, Ruff House Print Shop
August 15, 2023 13:00 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBYou have heard me say it before, and I'm gonna remind you again, strong businesses are built through slow, steady, intentional growth. Today's guest is proof of that. Jill Shephard is the owner of Ruff House Print Shop. She started her business in 2009, initially specializing in custom wedding invitations. She then spent 14 years prioritizing professional development, refining her business model, expanding her team, and strengthening her customer experience. In the process, she built a profi...
305 | Hiring Family & Creating Boundaries in Your Business with Katie Hart, Odd Daughter Paper Co.
August 08, 2023 13:00 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBToday we are continuing our conversation with Katie Hart of Odd Daughter Paper Co. If you missed the first part of our conversation, head back and listen to episode 304. In that episode, Katie and I talk about how she got started with her product-based business, and why you don't necessarily need to exhibit at trade shows to be successful with selling wholesale. Katie waited 10 years to do her first show, and we're talking about it in episode 304. For today's episode, which is part two of...
304 |You Can Be Successful with Wholesale without Trade Shows with Katie Hart, Odd Daughter Paper Co.
August 01, 2023 13:00 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBYes, friend, you can be successful with wholesale without exhibiting at trade shows. This is a question that I frequently hear from our Paper Camp students and today’s guest is a shining example of how slow, intentional growth without trade shows leads to success. Today’s guest is Paper Camp Alum & Advisory Board member, Katie Hart of Odd Daughter Paper Co. Katie launched Odd Daughter in 2013 as a side hustle. The brand evolved into a thriving product brand whose revenue primarily comes fr...
303 | What Retail Shops Look for When Buying Wholesale with Ginger Diaz, Feliz Modern & Rancho Diaz
July 25, 2023 13:00 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBOpening a retail storefront is no joke. It's a whole lot of work and a completely different business model than selling products online or to the wholesale market. Brick-and-mortar retail requires different strategies, operational systems, and of course staffing needs. I know there are many of you who dream of someday opening a shop, in fact, we have many product brands that also have brick-and-mortar shops in our Proof to Product community. So today we're going to hear from Ginger Diaz, ...
From the Archives | Scaling to 500 Wholesale Accounts with Brittany O'Brien, Brittany Paige
July 18, 2023 13:00 - 31 minutes - 29 MBWhile we're on a short break for the summer, we're re-airing some of your favorite Proof to Product episodes, including this one with Brittany O'Brien! Deciding to sell wholesale is the first step to scaling your business, but what are the next steps to being successful in it? Brittany O’Brien of Brittany Paige joins us to share the top three contributors to her wholesale success, how she overcame her fear of rejection, and a few tips she has for brands just getting started in wholesale. ...
From the Archives | Scaling Wholesale with Beth Roszkowski & Tiffany Grimes
July 11, 2023 13:00 - 31 minutes - 28.8 MBWhile we're on a short break for the summer, we're re-airing some of your favorite Proof to Product episodes, including this one with Beth Roszkowski and Tiffany Grimes! As a product creator, it’s common to feel that success means building your own storefront and selling retail to earn the most profit for your business. While that’s a great goal to strive for it doesn’t mean you should let other selling options, like wholesale, fall off your radar. In today’s episode, Beth Roszkowski an...
We're on Summer Break!
June 27, 2023 13:00 - 1 minute - 1.69 MBThe Proof to Product podcast team and I are practicing what we preach and the podcast is taking a summer break! We will be back with a new podcast episode on Tuesday, July 25th, and we have some incredible things lined up for you! While we're on hiatus, be sure you dip back into the archives of over 300 incredible episodes to help you streamline and scale your business. Plus, we'll even be sharing a few reruns of our favorite episodes as well! If you've been thinking about joining us for...
302 | Paid Advertising for E-Commerce Brands with Taylor Frame, Focus Funnels
June 20, 2023 13:00 - 37 minutes - 51.3 MBToday we're gonna talk about paid advertising. I have spent years searching for someone that has extensive experience in the e-commerce space, and who understands the unique challenges and needs of micro-businesses, solo entrepreneurs, and small businesses, particularly with paid advertising. What I found in my search was that there were a lot of people who were focused on paid ads, but for service businesses or for larger brands with huge budgets. There were people that only focused on ads,...
301 | You Are Your Number One Resource with Michelle Angenent, 417 Press
June 13, 2023 13:00 - 35 minutes - 48.4 MB"You are your number one resource." This is a direct quote from today's guest, Michelle Angenent. Michelle is a Paper Camp alum, LABS member, and the fierce founder behind 417 Press, an award-winning letterpress greeting card company and paper goods brand based in Montreal, Canada. Always observing life with a dash of humor. Michelle's product line is a direct reflection of the personal challenges she has faced from infertility to ADHD, midlife, divorce, and now midlife dating. Now in her...
300 | Lessons Learned from Successful Entrepreneurs
June 06, 2023 13:00 - 11 minutes - 15.4 MBI am incredibly proud to share our 300th episode of the Proof to Product podcast! It's just incredible to me that we started this show in May of 2017 with one single goal in mind—to become an invaluable business resource for those starting and scaling product based businesses. I think it's safe to say that we have certainly hit that goal. We have produced and published over 150 hours of audio content through this show. Our podcast has been downloaded over 1.1 million times. The Proof to P...
299 | Supply Chain Issues, Paper Shortages & What to Expect Going Forward with Ronnie Williams, DeFrance Printing
May 30, 2023 13:00 - 32 minutes - 44.1 MBSupply chain issues, paper shortages, production problems, shipping delays, and increased labor costs; these are just some of the issues that our community of product-based business owners have faced over the last few years. The problems extend well beyond our community of makers in that they also affect our manufacturing partners, suppliers, and vendors that we work with. Today, Ronnie Williams from DeFrance Printing is back on the podcast to share his insights. He and I chatted back in ...
298 | Why You Should Never Accept a $25 Wholesale Order with Katie Hunt
May 23, 2023 13:00 - 15 minutes - 21.4 MBI completely remember what it was like in the early days of selling wholesale. I felt like I was winging every single decision. I questioned everything I was reading on the internet. And, I was craving a community of other product makers that I could tap into for answers and to share resources. Way back in 2008, that community didn’t exist so I eventually created it. Since 2011, we have helped thousands of brands across industries and across the globe, get their products on the shelves of ...
297 | Building a Handmade Food & Beverage Brand with Ashleigh Evans, InBooze
May 16, 2023 13:00 - 35 minutes - 49.2 MBJust follow your instincts that seems to be the thread throughout today's podcast episode. Paper Camp alum, Ashleigh Evans of InBooze, joins me to talk about how she started a handmade, locally sourced food and beverage brand from her home in 2018. Her company has since expanded into a team working out of a commercial kitchen, warehouse, and a retail space, and they ship products to stores nationwide. On today's episode, we talk about regulatory requirements for the food and beverage ind...
296 | Live from *Noted and SF Now
May 09, 2023 13:00 - 11 minutes - 15.3 MBI recently spent the day with many of our Proof to Product students at the *Noted & SF Now trade show in San Francisco, CA. Seventy-four of our Proof to Product LABS members and Paper Camp alumni were exhibiting at this show - which means our community accounted for 62% of all exhibitors. Pretty incredible! Our community members won awards, secured major orders with key accounts, launched new products, connected with distributors and they grew their confidence as business owners. It’s su...
295 | Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Hobby that They Aren't Monetizing with Sam Kramer, Near Modern Disaster (Part 2)
May 02, 2023 13:00 - 22 minutes - 30.6 MBWelcome part two of my interview with Sam Kramer of Near Modern Disaster! If you have not yet listened to part one, make sure to check out episode 294 first! Sam gave us an update on her business and shared four things that have been critical to her business growth. In this episode, Sam and I are talking about how mental health is essential to being a smart and intentional business owner, and why every entrepreneur needs a hobby that they aren't monetizing! Today's episode is brought to ...