E438: Trekking Through Product Development with Hasan Hasmani

The inspiration for a business can strike at any time. For Hasan Hasmani, CEO of Underdog Games, the big idea came to him during a meeting with a client. After several years of selling other people's board games, that fateful conversation would eventually lead him to running a company and developing his own.    For non-essential goods such as board games, capturing a market can be difficult. But with the right idea and execution, you can find a loyal community and eventually run a sustainable and scalable business.   Audio Timestamps:  Intro - 0:00 Hasan's trek through ecommerce - 2:05 The lightbulb moment for Underdog Games - 3:15 How Underdog develops its board games - 9:10 Facebook advertising troubles - 10:43 LTVs and profit margins in the board game niche - 12:00 Ecomcrew Premium Waitlist is Open! - 13:38 Creating products with the audience in mind - 14:35 Hasan's current strategy with paid advertising - 16:06 The 18 month development cycle in board games - 16:33 Candid feedback and creativity - 19:13 Investment costs - 22:07 Ranking and sale trends - 23:51 How Mike deals with a seasonal business - 27:02  Hasan's focal point after FB ad troubles - 29:15 Why finding the right niche is more important than ever - 31:15 Hasan's advice for starting an ecommerce business - 33:51 | 34:53 | 36:30  Outro - 37:50   Hasan, thank you so much for your time. If you have any questions for Hasan and his company, simply fill out the contact form on the Underdog Games website and his team will relay it to him accordingly.   Ready to build your own company like Hasan and Underdog Games? We have a brand new edition of Secret Sauce and this month's class on the 16th, we'll be discussing how to make improvements on your products for competitive advantage.   That's it for this week's EcomCrew Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to leave us a review over on iTunes. Happy selling and we'll see you in the next one!