272 | Creating an entirely new product category with Kristina Schlegel, Make Bake
Do you have a product idea that has never existed before? If so, you may be wondering what it takes to bring an entirely new product to market or how to find suppliers and manufacturers. How do you market and sell something that no one has ever heard about? Kristina Schlegel of Make Bake faced these questions and concerns when she created edible stickers. In today’s episode, she’s taking us behind the scenes of how she broke into a new category, challenges she faced with packaging, and how she sourced her manufacturing!
Today’s episode is brought to you by our Email Marketing For Product Makers guide which will help you map out a year’s worth of marketing emails in under an hour. If you’ve ever struggled with what to say or how many emails to send to either your wholesale or Direct to Consumer customers, then this tool is for you.
The Product Development Journey
Persistence and curiosity are two key factors into successful product development. Kristina knew this as she was exploring her own product development journey for Stickies, her edible stickers. Initially, the idea came about when she was considering her own daughter’s interests in arts and crafts and how she could marry it with baking. That’s when the idea of an edible sticker came up.
She then had to go from an idea to a sellable product to getting it on shelves, but that journey isn’t easy. Bringing any type of product to market is hard, but when you are making something that’s never existed, it adds another layer of complexity.
To kick off the product development journey, she started with curiosity, research, and asking questions—how can she take what already exists to build her product? Her first thought was with edible images that you see on grocery store cakes. She began her research with manufacturers who were making these! While the product that already existed didn’t fit her idea, she wanted to push beyond limitations to do more for her product. She soon found that the limitation wasn't technology, but more so a limit of the imagination.
No one was pushing the manufacturers to go beyond simple circles or square cuts—so she asked about die cuts and kiss cuts. While she was met with a lot of no’s, it didn’t hold her back. Kristina was persistent in sourcing a manufacturer who would work with her. Through hours of research, talking to manufacturers, determining if the product was viable, then scaleable, she began testing with a short run manufacturer.
She went to market to test, got the response she wanted, then scaled to larger runs with a different manufacturer, completing the initial product development journey. She officially launched to market in early 2020, then 10 weeks later, COVID hit.
How COVID Impacted Her Business
Like most of us, Kristina prioritized her family, but her business was still running as well. When COVID first hit, she had 20 wholesale accounts, many of which were canceling orders out of fear of what was to come.
It would have been easy to freak out at that moment, but she knew the only way to sell was to sell direct to consumer instead. That wasn’t realistic though—Make Bake was a new brand without a DTC following. Instead, she took the time to do market research and product market fit: branding, marketing, packaging, influencer collabs, etc.
She had so many epiphanies during this time that changed the trajectory of her business:
Her ideal user wasn’t the mom like she thought, it was the children.
The sugar paper needed to be more durable for the kids.
Kids were eating them straight off the sheets, so they improved the flavor profile.
Pivoted messaging from decorate in seconds to crafty bakes the whole family can make, making it an interactive product.
While the pandemic could have completely crushed her business, it forced her to slow down, do the research, and create a really thoughtful product that is so much better than what she originally launched with! It has set her up with a brand that is different from all others in her space.
Educating Customers in New Product Categories
With the development of any new product, especially products that have never existed in the market before, there is a layer of education for customers that you have a responsibility to in your marketing and branding. Kristina needed to educate her customers for both wholesale accounts and direct to consumer as well.
The packaging had to:
Catch their eye
Communicate what the product is
Explain how to use it
In order to do this, she took to Facebook Advertising to test different versions of the packaging to see the difference in response. She had a small budget, but used the tools she had available to her during the pandemic. The packaging they ended up with was the packaging that won in those campaigns..
Capturing the Attention of Retail Customers with Packaging
Another problem she ran into was getting her products noticed inside retail stores. To create the best eye-catching packaging for her products, Kristina broke down every layer of her problem:
Getting people to stop and notice her brand.
Getting customers to understand what they were looking at.
Getting them to pick up the package and turn over the back.
Getting them to read the back and then put it in their basket.
Therefore, she just kept working on the problem and reworking the packaging, until I found something that worked, but it's very hard to introduce a new product. When she completed the new packaging, she saw an increase in sales.
In addition to her own packaging style, she wanted to see what the experience was like in retail stores. She offers custom displays for stores, but for stores that didn’t have them, she explored the different setups, took pictures of displays, and thought through what she could change that would improve customers picking up her products.
Finding Your Place in Business
When you’re a young brand, it’s hard to not compare yourself to other brands. Those brands aren’t in the same place as you—you can’t compete with larger brands who have bigger budgets. Constraints are what drive innovation! When you have unlimited resources, you do and try everything, because you don’t have to make any hard choices.
Businesses who have excess capital don’t have to make these decisions. For Make Bake, they made the decision to focus on a kid’s baking line. One day they hope to extend beyond that, but they’ve put everything behind this brand, because they believe in it.
Find what sets you apart from the rest, build the business you’re passionate about, and grow as you can.
If you're currently feeling stretched thin, needing to refocus within your business, or you just want to connect with other product makers who are starting and scaling their sales and marketing, come join us in Proof to Product LABS. We'll be opening up the doors again at the end of the year and everyone on our waitlist will get early access to secure your seat.
Download These Quotables to Save and Share
MEET KRISTINA
My name is Kristina Schlegel. I live in Walnut Creek, California with my husband and our two kids. I’m a product designer and professionally-trained pastry chef with 15+ years of product design & innovation experience. I’ve worked on projects for Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn Kids, Babylist, Babycenter, and the LA Times among others.
After I had my kids and started baking with them, I saw a gap for kid-friendly baking experiences that were as engaging as other kid craft/play experiences. So I created a line of edible stickers, and my kids and all their friends flipped over the idea! That's how Make Bake was born.
CONNECT WITH KRISTINA
WEBSITE: letsmakebake.com | INSTAGRAM: @letsmakebake
Connect with Katie Hunt
Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.
Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct
you might also like:
