CozyThrow & CozyCo – calm, soothing & comfortable blankets

Roy Morejon:

Welcome entrepreneurs and startups to Art of the Kickstart, the show that every entrepreneur needs to listen to before you launch. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, President and Founder of Enventys Partners, the world’s only turnkey product launch company. From product development and engineering to omnichannel marketing, we’ve helped our clients launch thousands of inventions and earn more than $1 billion in sales over the past 20 years. Each week, I interview a startup success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your launch to the next level. The show would not be possible without our main sponsor, ProductHype. The weekly newsletter that goes out and shows you the best inventions that just launched. Make sure to check out producthype.co and join the Hype Squad. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today I am extremely excited because I am speaking with the CEO of Sensory Product Design, is Liz Holland. Liz, thank you so much for joining us today on Art of the Kickstart.

Liz Holland:

Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Roy Morejon:

So your campaign is currently active over on Kickstarter for everybody that’s listening to the show right now on their favorite listening devices. It fully funded in just five days. It’s got over 150 backers, lots of capital in the campaign. So if you would, for our audience, Liz, tell them about this product as if they’ve never heard about it before?

Liz Holland:

Alrighty. Well, the first two products I’m launching, because there’s more, are the CozyCo-zzz and the CozyThrow-zzz, and they have the ZZZ at the end. We’ve been issued trademarks on all of the products. So they are basically throw blankets that work to use around the house, but they have this beautiful hand pockets and feet pockets and actually have one set up here. So when you wrap yourself up, you can hold things, you can pick up things, you can take a drink of water, and the foot pockets are very, very warm. Actually, all of them have this, I think this is a better one to show, polar fleece lined, but it also has two layers of fabric and then two more layers of fabric. So it’s not like putting your hand in a okay pockets. You’re putting your hands in a very warm pocket.

And so that’s the idea. The CozyCo-zzz is a toddler version. I wasn’t thinking of that until I got some major requests for it, and we wanted to call it the magic napper, because one child we tested in South Florida loved it so much she got two. She took it to daycare, and then all the kids at daycare wanted, and all the teachers wanted it. So it was just such a lovely surprise that even in South Florida, that feeling of wrapping yourself up, maybe the AC is too high. It’s not necessarily winter only.

Obviously winter is a great time to have your CozyCo-zzzs and your CozyThrow-zzzs but we have found that people respond to it. And the toddler thing I was going to mention is that they just wrap themselves up, put their hands and feet in. You say, “I’ll read your book in a minute. Go get yourself set up.” You come over in there that sound asleep. They don’t tend to go to sleep. So we have to keep it a little secret, but it happens a lot. And that’s the thing beyond warmth. It gives this sense of safety and protection and close out the world. Get a glass of wine, read your book. Get cuddled up. It’s a nice antidote to the crazy world we live in.

Roy Morejon:

Absolutely. So Liz, how did all of this start? How did you become really interested in tackling this problem personally?

Liz Holland:

Well, I am an industrial designer. My dad was an inventor. So literally every day we’d sit around the table and see what he did. I’d come home from school and say, “What’s that smell?” “Dad’s cooking a tennis racket in the oven.” Was the answer. So I went on to study industrial design, and as Mac computers came out, I got more into graphic design, but that pool towards products was very strong. And especially in my early 50s, I was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and I’ve struggled with my health my whole life. Headaches pretty much every day of my whole adult life. But the sensory issues made it go bad to worse really, really quickly. And I had no idea that there was a thing called sensory processing disorder. So when I got diagnosed, I realized the best way to solve the problem is to not experience it in the first place.

So I was making prototypes for myself throughout my life, even before that with the headaches. And so I literally make prototypes every week for something. So I can’t turn it off. I wanted the first product to be much, much broader audience than just people with SPD, so that we could shine a light on SPD, and start to have people understand that it’s real. Number one. At my age, we didn’t know a lot about a lot of things when I was a kid. So I got, “What’s your problem? Get over it.” And I certainly thought I should get over it, but I couldn’t. Just like that.

People go, “Oh, get over it.” So when I understood it more, it was like, okay, now I can untangle the mess. I can solve one problem and then the next and then the next and then the next. That’s recovering from your nervous system getting shot through the roof. If I could do better and not experience it in the first place, have my tools around to go, okay, I’m going outside. I got to wear a hat even though I don’t think I need it. The sun comes out and then you’re like, “Oh crap, where’s my hat?” So that’s how it all came about.

Roy Morejon:

Amazing. So I know not everyone listening to the show is an industrial designer, but I think what’s important that we see a lot of the founders that we’ve worked with over the past or the founders that just struggle getting their idea out of their head and onto paper and then start designing and prototyping, it can always be one of these major hurdles. So I’d love for any tricks or tips that you may have for our audience to just get started.

Liz Holland:

Yeah, I talk to my kids about this, my adult kids a lot. And there’s a concept called thought word deed. And the idea is everything that exists in this world started with a thought, but if it stays at that thought, it never exists. So you take what’s spinning around your head and you start turning it into words, whether it’s spoken words, written words, but it helps you organize all that. It’s a jumble in your head. It helps you organize. Okay, this is what it’s looking like. And if you stop at words, again, you don’t get to the deed. The part, deed is taking action. And it’s not like you just do this once. It’s pretty much a daily thing. Because, there’s so many different aspects that as a CEO, as doing everything myself with some outside hires, I have so many things to do, and it’s the only way to get things done to be really conscientious of, oh, that’s a really good thought, but if I leave it there, there’s nothing.

And when it’s really tricky or triggering, it’s that much more important to take it from there to the words and take some action. So that’s my best advice.

Roy Morejon:

Amazing.

Liz Holland:

A lot of philosophies in this world. But that one I cling to every day, like especially when I’m stuck. Because stuck it means there’s just too many things. And if I don’t sort them out somehow… And I love computers and I use the tools many different ways, but it fundamentally starts there.

Roy Morejon:

Yeah, I think a lot of founders do get stuck. But in terms of what you were able to do and take action, what led you down the path of getting this product made and then deciding that crowdfunding was the right litmus test to launch this product and get it out into the world and open up those floodgates of new opportunities for you?

Liz Holland:

Well, crowdfunding was certainly in my mind, but it wasn’t my first choice necessarily. I was looking at licensing and looking at partnering with distribution groups. And that’s still a possibility. But crowdfunding became, as I tried many things, that kind of were working, but then there was a halt, they stopped working. And I had to pull back and say, wait a second, do I keep on pushing for this thing? Do I let it go? Do I learn from this lesson? What are the lessons? And how do I go forward from there? So that’s the process of how to get to the world. My main goal was to open the floodgates. It’s an amazing product. And I have really analyzed all those blanket products, though the Snuggie that made tens of millions of dollars. It’s like wearing a robe backwards. I never got why people were so excited about that.

Your feet are sticking out, your hands are sticking out, there’s weighted blankets, but they’re not really functional. They’re for lying down. They’re not for sitting and doing something in your living room. And there’s one, the cozy that was on Shark Tank… Oh, the Comfy that was on Shark Tank. That was a huge sweatshirt, but you were supposed to tuck your knees into the sweatshirt. Who can do that for any length of time other than kids? So again, I think people that struggle with being cold go ahead and buy these things because they think it might help. But this is the one that we’ve done worldwide, product searches. There is nothing like it. We’re very close to being issued a utility patent. And we solved that fundamental problem of, if your hands and feet are cold, even if you’re wrapped in a blanket, it’s really still hard to be very warm. To get warm at all, actually.

And so I went from prototyping with seamstress in the area, and I finally found a team in India that the sourcing agents and the manufacturer who we’ve become very good friends, they’ve invited me to family weddings in India. I worked in China before in my last… When I worked for Prince and I designed tennis rackets and other tennis products, and did many trips to China. I have no problem working with China. But with the turns of event in the world, China became kind of problematic and then still is. So I’m very happy with this team, and it just takes that constant work to make them figure out the little details here and there on the hand pockets here. We didn’t want any extra fabric in the way there. What’s the right thickness? The foot pocket goes up around the ankles because your feet are cold.

I have often that experience that my feet are cold, my legs… I mean, my feet are fine, my legs are fine, but my ankles are exposed and they’re freezing. So we made that kind of extra deep one to solve all the problems and literally, you get to the point where you’re really warm really fast. And for me, my comfort is very narrow. So I’m constantly going back and forth, “Oh, my feet are getting too hot.” And if I let them get too hot, they burn. So I have to pull them out, and I don’t have to do anything or go anywhere to solve these problems. It’s just right here.

And then fundamentally, they’re a rectangles. So you throw, all the pockets are inside, you fold it up and throw it over as a throw on your couch. And so it’s in reach, which maybe that’s not a big deal for a lot of people, but for people like me that have struggled and have a lot of pain around it, going to the other room to get it, I end up not, or taking an hour or two hours, I finally go, “Why don’t I go to the other room and get it?” And so we want to have it. So it is just there. You just use it, you don’t have to put over a chair or a couch, but have it handy because you’re going to use it lot because it’s lovely to be in there, again whether cold or not. It’s just like coat so nice to be completely wrapped head to toe.

Roy Morejon:

Well, talking about the Kickstarter campaign that’s running right now, for everybody listening to the show, definitely go and check it out. But talk about a little bit of maybe some of the surprises that you had along the way in terms of the amount of prep work that was necessary to get this project in a position to be fully funded in the first week?

Liz Holland:

Yes, definitely. Well, I was working with an incredible team at Enventys Partners, which a little something about. But I also, prior to that, I’d worked with a lot of different things, tried a lot of different things, and I came to a point where it was like, okay, crowdsourcing is the way we can get the floodgates to open. Researched the top companies and I picked a very good one. But some of the surprises were just that test market chat. We’re testing it way before we even… There was the pre-market test and then the market test, and I forget what they were called. But I was surprised that we went that deep with customer feedback from months ago. And really, I think we got close to 3000 people during that period, and that’s pretty exciting. It blew past all of our expectations. And so that was big then.

But you’re nervous as can be on launch day, is this going to work? Is it not going to work? Is it going to fail miserably? So out of the gate to get… So I was like, oh, there’s another one. There’s another one because it shows up on my phone, talking to my best friend. “Whoa, there’s another one.” So that was just fun and lovely to have that. And I was warned that the first week and the last week were the best, and we’re at day nine now, and yesterday was a really good day. So I really wanting to continue to push those flood gates and ride the coattails of what you guys are doing, trying to find that thing that takes it from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. And so if anybody out there has a really good way to do that, I have a lot of international interests that I didn’t expect from Japan, and they’re very excited about it.

They said it was the best product they had ever seen. One of them. I don’t know, they’re blanks book. So once you launch, you get pitched by everybody right and left. And you can tell if they’re just copying, pacing and pitching everybody or whether they’ve really seen your product. And it’s important to me that the people that I work with all the time are great people. They add to the group. I play a lot of tennis. We’re greater than the sum of our parts when we play doubles. So the people come into the family. This is something that matters so much to people’s hearts, to help solve these problems. And I only get to the next ones by this one being successful. And we have an outdoor version coming after this one, the CozyGo-zzz and then the bed version, the CozyToe-zzz.

So that’s a whole Cozy line. But also, I have many other products that might help people more with specific sensory issues. But this whole line was really for the world, for anybody and so CozyGo-zzz is a hundred percent waterproof and warm on the inside. You can be covered head to toe. It has a hood too. In the rain, it’s like wearing a Gore-Tex jacket that goes all the way down to your feet. And it also doubles as the best picnic blanket ever because you don’t get a wet butt because you thought the grass was dry enough.

Roy Morejon:

There you go.

Liz Holland:

And the pockets you can store your valuable. So they’re logical and functional at a very high level, and they do what I say they’re going to do.

Roy Morejon:

Which is great. Especially in business these days, is completing what you actually say you’re going to do. So I’m super excited to be able to see this product once it finally comes to market. I know our audience is definitely going to be checking this out. But Liz, this is going to get us into our final section of the interview called the Launch Round, where I’m going to rapid fire a handful of questions at you. Are you good to go?

Liz Holland:

Sure.

Roy Morejon:

Let’s do this. So what inspired you to be an entrepreneur?

Liz Holland:

Well, living as I did with my dad growing up every day was inventing stuff. And I tried to turn it off for a while, but I couldn’t. So I decided to just go for it. And I worked with some companies where I was doing industrial design where CEOs were just destroying their own company. It’s very frustrating. So I want beyond the products of that offer, really, I want to have a company that strives to have everybody win. You win, everybody wins. We all are psyched to do the work. We are properly rewarded for our good efforts. I win, everybody wins.

Roy Morejon:

Amazing. So if you could meet with any entrepreneur throughout history, who would it be?

Liz Holland:

I’m thinking Yvon Chouinard.

Roy Morejon:

Okay. Love that answer. Yeah.

Liz Holland:

He’s the CEO of Patagonia.

Roy Morejon:

Yeah. What would be your first question for him?

Liz Holland:

Oh, first question. When did you surrender to being an entrepreneur rather than just a rock climbing guy that came up with a cool thing?

Roy Morejon:

Nice. Any books you would recommend to our audience outside of Yvon’s book, Let My People Go Surfing?

Liz Holland:

Yes, yes. I love that. I actually met with Patagonia in a previous job I had, and the receptionist was this 50 year old surfer dude. Just fit the profile perfectly. Beyond entrepreneurialism, if you struggle with you’re an adult that is now saying, “Oh my God, maybe that’s me.” This book was the only book available for adults about SPD, Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight. And we all relate to that. You might not be all of them, but definitely that’s a great one. In the way of other books that more entrepreneurialism, I listen more than I read on technical issues. So I don’t have that, sorry, I can’t think of that at this moment.

Roy Morejon:

All right. Well the last question, Liz, that I always ask all of my guests, and again, I know you’re just running your first crowdfunding campaign, but you’ve gotten a small taste of it, but would love to know your take on what the future of crowdfunding looks like?

Liz Holland:

I really hope that it continues to be for entrepreneurs. I’ve noticed that bigger companies are claiming that they’re startups and we need your help, and they’ve got all this muscle and money behind them, and they also check out these crowdsourcing sites to see if they can take your idea before you get it to market. So really like to go have some kind of future vision with the companies to have a little more focused on entrepreneurs, newer entrepreneurs rather than big companies, posing as one.

Roy Morejon:

Keep them cozy on the site.

Liz Holland:

And also I’d love for more women to be involved. It was a surprise to me that your team told me that we’re bigger on men and crowdsourcing. And I went, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” But I’m an inventor, so I love all this. So I’ve been surfing them for years. And that’s another, Diane, the person that started Indiegogo, Diane Ringle something. [inaudible 00:21:48]. I researched a lot before I even considered.

Roy Morejon:

Clearly. Well, Liz, this has been amazing. I know our audience is going to get a ton of value out of this conversation. This is your opportunity to give our crowd and the audience your final pitch. Tell people what you’re all about, and where they should go and why they should back your project?

Liz Holland:

That sounds good. Well, Kickstarter campaign, you can either look for the CozyCo-zzz or CozyThrow-zzz or if it’s easier to remember Sensory Product Design. I specifically made it SPD to as a nod to Sensory Processing Disorder. So you can also find it on Sensory Product Design. And there’s a banner right at the top to get you to that. And I think we’re going to offer a 50% discount for listeners that are coming from you. I think your team will create that link. But I’m so happy that I got a chance to just talk about it and also show, at least, some of the features, the hand pockets. And when people get it, they fully get it. That’s been this journey, and that’s how I hire people. I know the moment we start talking to them about it, whether they’re eyes glaze over and they’re like, “I want one. I know somebody that must have this.” And it doesn’t have to be for everybody, but it’s going to be for a lot of people, that if you struggle with being cold, this is a great product. You’re going to absolutely love it.

Roy Morejon:

Amazing. Well, I can’t wait to get one. Liz, thank you so much for being on the show. Audience, thanks for tuning in. Make sure to visit artofthekickstart.com for the notes, transcript, links to the campaign over on Kickstarter. And of course, I got to give a big shout-out to our crowdfunding podcast sponsor over at ProductHype, the top newsletter for new products that just launched. Liz, thank you so much for joining us today on Art of the Kickstart.

Liz Holland:

Thank you. And I think I’m going to be in the ProductHype article as well, or the podcast. What’s the word? Newsletter?

Roy Morejon:

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much.

Liz Holland:

Thanks again. Bye.

Roy Morejon:

Thank you for tuning into another amazing episode of Art of the Kickstart. The show about building a better business, life, and world with crowdfunding. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode as much as I did, make sure to show us some love by rating us and reviewing us on your favorite listening station, whatever that may be. Your review really helps other founders and startups find us so they can improve their craft and achieve greater success like you. And, of course, be sure to visit artofthekickstart.com for all the previous episodes. And if you need any help, make sure to send me an email at info artofthekickstart.com. I’d be glad to help you out. Thanks again for tuning in. I’ll see you next week.