The Power of Product Innovation

In this episode, host Josh interviews Afolabi Oyerokun, co-founder of Honu Worldwide, about his journey building successful Amazon brands. Afolabi shares key lessons he’d apply if starting over: focus on innovation, automate processes, and prioritize time for rest and strategic thinking. He emphasizes creating unique products, niching down, and protecting intellectual property through patents and copyrights. Afolabi also discusses using data-driven research for product development and effective listing strategies. The episode offers actionable insights for entrepreneurs aiming to scale and protect their e-commerce businesses.

Chapters:

Introduction & Guest Background (00:00:00)
Josh introduces Afolabi Oyerokun, his background, and achievements in product development and Amazon businesses.

Lessons Learned & The Importance of Freedom (00:00:56)
Afolabi discusses lessons from his Amazon journey, emphasizing the original goal of freedom and challenges faced.

Three Key Takeaways: Innovate, Automate, Rest (00:02:21)
Afolabi outlines his three main takeaways: innovate, automate, and allocate more time for thinking and rest.

The Power of Innovation & Niching Down (00:04:58)
Afolabi explains the importance of innovation, creating unique products, and niching down to dominate categories.

Protecting Intellectual Property (00:08:30)
Discussion on the necessity of protecting product designs with patents and copyrights, and the types used.

Case Study: Copyright Enforcement on Amazon (00:10:24)
Afolabi shares a real example of using copyright to remove copycats and restore sales on Amazon.

The Value of IP in Brand Exits (00:12:19)
Afolabi describes how intellectual property increased the value and appeal of his brands during exit.

Finding Design Inspiration & Trend Analysis (00:14:08)
Afolabi details how they research trends, combine successful patterns, and create standout product and packaging designs.

Product Listing Strategy: Variations vs. Standalone (00:16:20)
Afolabi explains their approach to listing products as separate items rather than variations to maximize search visibility.

Closing & Future Topics (00:17:11)
Josh thanks Afolabi and hints at future discussions on supply chain topics.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites  
"Honu Worldwide": "00:03:00"
"Data Dive": "00:14:30"

Concepts and Ideas 
"Innovation": "00:04:58" 
"Automation": "00:04:58" 
"Thinking Time": "00:04:58" 
"Design Patents": "00:08:37" 
"Utility Patents": "00:08:37" 
"Copyrights": "00:08:37" 
"Intellectual Property (IP)": "00:12:19" 

Key Takeaways 
"Niche Down and Innovate": "00:06:45" 
"Protect Your Ideas": "00:08:30" 
"Create Unique Designs": "00:14:30" 

Notable Quotes 
"Your business is in your IP.": "00:12:19" 
"If you don't have any IP, you don't have a business.": "00:12:19"

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I'm really excited to introduce you to Afolabi Oyerokun. He is the co-founder of Honu Worldwide and Innovative Product Development, Sourcing and 3PL company based in Pennsylvania. Afolabi has always been a has always been passionate about finding things, haggling and negotiating prices. His obsession with finding good quality products at bargain prices led him to help several seven and eight figure brands increase their profits and scale rapidly by buying smart from Asia and the US. He is behind the successful launches of several multi-million dollar products on Amazon and other retail channels. An entrepreneur at heart, Afolabi owns and has sold a few seven figure private label brands. He loves helping people design, develop and manufacture innovative products. Welcome to the show.

Afolabi 00:00:53  Thank you Josh. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited.

Josh 00:00:56  You know, if you were to restart on Amazon, which I think that's what you're doing now, is you're creating some new brands and launching them on Amazon. What are some of those lessons, actionable takeaways that you can give to other sellers to say, hey, here are the challenges that we faced at different points in the business, that I'm going to make sure that we don't go through these same challenges again in the future.

Josh 00:01:20  If you wouldn't mind breaking some of those lessons learned for us. Breaking it down.

Afolabi 00:01:25  I'm going to, if I were to start all over again, I'm also going to weave some stories and past experiences into it. So when somebody goes into E-comm, you're starting your e-commerce or you're starting your Amazon business. Sometimes we forget the reason why we started in the first place. We forget the reason why we quit our jobs and we went into e-commerce. For me, my main driver was freedom. I wanted freedom, I wanted to be. I wanted to be able to control my time. I wanted to be able to be there for my family any day, any time. I wanted to be able to take off. If I want to take off, I want to take off, you know? Yeah. So you start this e-com business and you're married to it. You know, you're you're you're waking up 3 a.m. in the morning. You're, you know, you're sleeping late at night. So eventually it defeats the purpose of why you started in the first place.

Afolabi 00:02:21  So we found ourselves caught up in all those things. You know, me and my business partner, we would fight each other. You know why? Why? You know why are we running out of stock? I'm like, I didn't know that product was going to run out of stock, you know? You know, we didn't have a good system in place and we didn't have the freedom or anything. So going back now, looking back to where we came from to now, there are three things I'm going to do differently this time. First, I'm going to innovate. Second, I'm going to automate. Third, I'm going to have a lot of free time to think. Because for me, I believe that thinking time is a very creative time. I believe that your rest time is very important. People ask me, you know, you know, jokingly, maybe I'm speaking to Norm, I mean, Norm. You know, there's my business partner on you. You know, he picks, you know, he picks up on me a lot.

Afolabi 00:03:19  He's like, hey, I love you. What did you do this weekend? I'm like, no, I did nothing. I just sat on my couch and I was watching soccer all day. I was not doing nothing. You know, sometimes he calls me. I said, I'm going to stop disturbing me. I'm on the field with my son. We're playing soccer here. Please. You know. Yeah.

Josh 00:03:41  So, yeah.

Afolabi 00:03:42  Freedom. Time to spend time with your loved one is very important. So I'll make sure that this time I automate so that I can free up myself to do whatever I want whenever I wanted to do it. I don't want anything just pressuring me down all the time. Because when I'm thinking I'm creating things that are so valuable in my rest time. Yeah, I could be sitting on a lounge. I mean, on a on a on a recliner. And you, you know, you when you're relaxed, when your mind is at rest, you so many creative ideas come to you and you can look into your business and, and actually spot all the things you are doing wrong when you're in a relaxed mode, you know?

Josh 00:04:26  Yeah.

Josh 00:04:27  So you're you're kind of three takeaways then, right? If you were to restart would be to innovate, automate and then have more time for thinking and just downtime in general. Right. So...