Information Inquiry - Your News Today!
April 8th, 2024
Good morning and happy Masters Week. Does anyone know if Tiger Woods is playing this year? This week’s edition is a VERY long one, so I will jump right in.
On April 8th, 1977, The Clash, an English punk rock band, and part of the original wave of British punk rock released their first album The Clash. Every time I hear a song by The Clash, more specifically Should I Stay or Should I Go, I think of that scene in Stranger Things where Will Byers discovers The Clash.
Speaking of discovering, I mentioned last week that you could expect a featured interview with a Kickstarter I backed around a year ago.
Well, here it is. I was scrolling through TikTok when I came across an ad for a rent-friendly and affordable wall light that looks nice on the wall. As a renter myself, I was very intrigued by the product right away.
The product is Poplight. It was started by Rose and her wife Caroline. The idea came from a genuine place of wanting a product that did not yet exist which is something I really appreciate about Poplight. It isn’t just another take on a similar product.
I decided to back the project on Kickstarter and received an email thanking me for supporting it as well as asking more about myself.
I wondered if this offer to set up a phone call was serious so I reached out.
I had the pleasure of talking with Rose for the first time last April and again just this past September to hear about how things were going with Poplight. Rose was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to speak with me again and do a more interview-style conversation about Poplight just for Information Inquiry! While I want to highlight Poplight and the product itself, I really want to share the behind-the-scenes work that goes into starting a business like this and what it takes to be successful.
Here’s a transcript of the phone conversation we had, edited for length and clarity:
*Disclaimer: I am not being paid or sponsored in any way by Poplight. I just really like the product and the people behind it*
Information Inquiry: So first of all, how is everything going?
Poplight: It is the first week of April 2024. I've been looking forward to this particular week for a year because we're shipping spotlights next month, which is a huge milestone. Of course, once we start shipping, there's a whole slew of new issues and problems we're gonna have to solve.
Information Inquiry: That's something I did not think about. It would have felt like the finish line was getting the product to customers.
Information Inquiry: I wanted to go back and sort of talk about the beginning process of this. I mean, it's crazy that this is a finish line of sorts, but can you tell me about the idea for Poplight?
Poplight: Yeah, we had the idea like, 4 years ago now, and it really was born out of necessity. My wife and I had just moved in together. We were living in a part of Denver that's known for very tiny but cute cottages. Our house was so small, and our bedroom only fit a queen-sized mattress We loved that house. It was amazing. But we needed lighting in our bedroom. I just went on Amazon and was like, “Cute stick on wall lights,” and the best option out there was those tap lights. I don't know if you remember those infomercials, it was this big kind of ugly utility light.
Information Inquiry: Yeah, they're not the most attractive lights. I had them in my closet and they had a little design on them. Very distinct click sound to them.
Poplight: Totally, and that was all that was out there. There are other stick-on lights, but the core thing those were missing was that they didn't meet the standards of something we'd want in our bedroom. They looked like something that was born more for convenience than born out of, like, I want my space to look and feel a certain way. I said that to Caroline, and then we kind of moved on from it. Then like a month later, I was like, we still need wall lighting in here. So we were like, we'll just install wired wall lighting at this point, but then realized it was going to be at least $1,500 to get the wall sconces. We would either pay for an electrician or do the work ourselves and then patch the wall when we moved out. That was going to be way too expensive.
Information Inquiry: At what point did you know you could turn this into an actual business and a real product? How much time were you spending on it and how did you come up with the design?
Poplight: I was kind of doing it on the side until I was like, you know what, this is really something we should pursue. That was probably around the time we decided to kick off the Kickstarter. So it was mostly like three years of being like, what is this? What are we doing? Is this viable? I think we were kind of inching closer to product market fit. I think that those three years could have been accelerated. But it was mostly just a learning phase for our research. We probably talked to 5 or 6 different product designers throughout the three years we were brainstorming this. But at the end of the day, if you really want to create a physical product, you gotta work with a team that's done this before and knows what they're doing. And once we finally clicked with the product design team, they're based in Canada, the magic happened.
Information Inquiry: So in those three years leading up to the Kickstarter, what was your time split on that? I know when we first spoke in April of 2023, you were still working a day job.
Poplight: I was really spending like four hours a week talking to product designers, but then spending all my free time thinking about, you know, what features mattered, how could it actually stick on the wall and be removed without leaving a mark. Very part-time for the first two years. And then in the third year, when we got serious about product design, it became more than a part-time job. I actually started working on Poplight full time as of January 2024, which brought to light how insane it was that I was doing this on the side of a tech job.
Information Inquiry: That is an insane amount of work. I can’t imagine how much extra time had to go into Poplight. I’m curious, what does it look like from a legal perspective when creating a product/business.
Poplight: Your IP or your intellectual property and your patents are like your moat around your product. And I've heard it described that just because you have a patent, it doesn't mean someone can't infringe upon it. You bear the cost of pursuing somebody infringing on your patent. So the whole idea of intellectual property is super expensive. You have to pay a patent lawyer to help you with the process. And then if somebody does infringe on your patent, you have to pay a lawyer to pursue the company that's infringing on your patent.
Information Inquiry: Have you guys had any pushback there?
Poplight: Not yet, although I'm fully prepared for it. And I don't know how to explain it, but I think it's gonna be really emotional to see someone copy our product. The minute we go live on Amazon, which we won't be able to do until we have our product available, I know people are going to copy it. That's how Amazon works.
Information Inquiry: Yeah, I can’t imagine how that would feel to put this much time, effort, and money into something and potentially have someone just copy it.
I wanted to ask about manufacturing. I think one of the most surprising things you told me early on was the upfront cost just for a mold to be made. How has that process been going?
Poplight: I didn't realize how much of my time would be spent on supply chain. There are a ton of international factors that are affecting why shipping is so slow to get product from China to the US. There are a lot of things that have affected that, like that bridge collapse and Baltimore yesterday. The port of Baltimore is huge. It was actually where Poplight was going to get shipped to. And now we have to reroute it. It's just crazy because I never thought I'd read a headline like that and be like, that actually affects my life.
Information Inquiry: Do you have to get an individual prototype back for doing your QA or have you gone to China for QA?
Poplight: We went to China in December to do final QA before manufacturing. China was so amazing. I had the time of my life in China.
Information Inquiry: Is that the first place you looked? How did you go about finding who you were going to have manufacture it?
Poplight: Obviously we wanted to produce it in the US and that was what I pursued first. It is so expensive and basically impossible to manufacture in the US. The design team we work with in Canada had this partnership with this manufacturer in China. So we just went with them.
Information Inquiry: I believe I had asked you in April of 2023 when we spoke, sort of jokingly, if y'all had thought about going on Shark Tank. Y’all ended up doing the show which is so crazy. How was that experience?
Poplight: Yeah, Shark Tank wasn't on my radar at all at first. Like most of the opportunities that we face, I'm not even thinking about them. We ended up hearing from a producer on Shark Tank because while our Kickstarter was happening, we were building this momentum due to our TikTok blowing up. We were going viral. We were getting millions of views on some of our content. I'm like, is this real? So I let it sit in my inbox for like three weeks then replied just to kind of suss it out because most people apply to be Shark Tank. It's like an application. Probably three months after that, maybe a little sooner, we had a producer team assigned to us. That's like two Shark Tank producers that you work with and they basically hold your hands through the full process. Those two people were so amazing and we loved every minute of talking to them.
Information Inquiry: In the segment that you guys were on, there were like five, or ten minutes without commercials and you were actually pitching. It feels like you have like 10s to make a decision. Obviously, that's not real life. How quick is it that to when they're like, all right, you have to give us an answer?
Poplight: They definitely create some pressure. I don't know if this was in the filming, but I think Kevin was like once one of either Robert or Mark offers, my offer goes away. So they’re time pressuring you, which is a great tactic, but like you're trying to do all this math in your head, you're trying to answer their questions. However, Caroline, my wife was a teacher at one point in her life. She did such a good job because they were talking over each other. Caroline was like, “Mark, what were you just saying? Barbara, we're going to wait just one second.” So she kind of mediated it. You're so stressed, the last thing you need is a bunch of people yelling at you. Not yelling at you, but just asking you questions.
Information Inquiry: Wow, I would be very overwhelmed. Did you guys have a second to talk amongst yourselves and say, yes, this is the offer we want to take? Or do you just have to try to go off of instinct?
Poplight: They didn't show this in the filming, but when we were getting offers or trying to make decisions, we would go behind the wall and whisper. You're wearing a mic and the sharks have earpieces so we couldn't figure out if they could hear everything we were saying. So we tried to whisper and cover our mikes and talk amongst ourselves. Even if you're talking to each other, you're on a TV set, you're next to Mark Cuban. It's really hard.
Information Inquiry: You took a deal with Kevin, how has that been after the fact?
Poplight: After the fact you start emailing with Kevin's team. Kevin has a whole organization that works for him. A lot of super nice people. But Kevin and all of the sharks, to my understanding, they're investors with lots of other spaces. Right now we're in the due diligence process, which is like the long kind of legal and financial process of going through our numbers. It's a pretty thorough process.
Information Inquiry: That is such a cool experience. With you being so close to shipping, what's the last thing before you're like, all right, we're good to go. Is there a point where you will be comfortable?
Poplight: No, I don't think I'll ever feel that way. Getting out of the preorder phase is not the end of this journey. It's the start of the next, much bigger journey. I think I'll start to feel more comfortable after the success of our Kickstarter and the preorders and our first container of Poplights. Once we're functioning as a normal e-commerce business, maybe.
Information Inquiry: You may have mentioned this, but are you planning on trying to get on the shelves at all, or is that a down-the-road kind of thing?
Poplight: Yeah, we are working on a few retail opportunities that I can't talk about yet. But retail is a whole other beast.
Information Inquiry: I understand. Well, seriously, this has been great, thank you so much. If there is one last pitch or thing you would like to say in the context of this interview, what would it be?
Poplight: I think it would be that we created Poplight because we needed it. Something Mark Cuban asked us when we pitched on Shark Tank, I don't remember if this was in the episode, but he asked if this was already out there. Could he just buy it somewhere else? And the answer is no. The defining thing is it's designed to be removed. That for us is the big differentiator. But like in the context of this interview, I think, like I told you, you're like a duck when you're building an e-commerce brand. It's cool and looks great on Instagram on the top, but you're paddling so hard underneath. All the stuff you have to do that's not even the website or the product is tremendous. Maybe someone reads this and they're like, these people are doing a lot of stuff to make a wall light, and they're more excited about buying it because there's so much love that goes into each Poplight. Maybe someone reads this and they're like, these two women put so much thought into this product, I'd love to test it out.
Please consider checking out their website. You can see how easy it is to install and remove Poplight!
Also, I personally ordered two Poplights in the Sage Green color option if you were wondering.
A Very Quick Complaint:
For the sake of this week’s edition still feeling similar to other editions of Information Inquiry, I wanted to tell you about something that bothers me.
I mentioned that Rylie and I go to the same bar every Tuesday for a comedy show. One thing that I didn’t mention about the bar that really gets me fired up is that there are no mirrors in any of the bathrooms.
The bar has 3 bathrooms and not one of them has a mirror. To make it even worse, you can see where a mirror used to be in each of the bathrooms.
I am not worked up because I am sad that I don’t get to see myself. I am not that egocentric. But why take them out? I suppose it is better than the “mirror” at Southside Social in Chattanooga, TN. Rather than having a mirror, they have a cutout in the wall, where a mirror is supposed to be, that forces you to make eye contact with the person in the other restroom while washing your hands. Unbelievable.
Anyways, if you would like to read more about my opinions on the Southside Social bathroom you can do so HERE.
Next edition will be back to the traditional format that you are familiar with.
I’ll leave you with this as you think about lights, “Say it ain't so, I will not go
Turn the lights off, carry me home” - blink-182 All the Small Things
Cole, this week's edition tickled my fancy a little more than usual. Your question about the bathroom mirrors, or lack thereof, resonated with me more than I would assume any other of your subscribers. I understand that some questions are not asked with the intention of receiving a response, but I do have a little insight into the naked bathrooms if you're interested. If you're not interested, that's cool, I promise my feelings will not be hurt, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week.
If you've made it this far, that means I still have you on the hook, and I have the pleasure of droning on about my most favorite topic in the world: industrial engineering and operational efficiency. My greatest wish is that after you read this, your rage will turn into understanding, and you can use that restroom in peace. You see, everyone uses the restroom, and in a place like a bar, the restroom usage might be slightly heightened due to the nature of activities, and this means queues. When modeling restrooms in simulations, it is practice to represent the time women and men take to use the restroom with the industry standard: a triangular distribution with a mode (or most common "transaction" time) as 180 seconds and 120 seconds for women and men respectively.
You noted that the bar has three restrooms, so I'm assuming that these are three single stalled restrooms, each with their own doors, toilet, and sink. I hate to make further assumptions, but I would put money on the fact that the bar itself is not particularly spacious, and the area designated to the restrooms and queue is also nothing to write home about. Coupled with the fact that this bar has a high draw, especially during Tuesday night comedy, I hypothesize that the restrooms consistently maintain a queue. My hunch is that the bar staff removed the mirrors to the restroom in order to control the restroom usage time. I wouldn't consider myself particularly egocentric either, but I also have a hard time passing up the opportunity to pop a pimple in a public restroom, and if the bar can minimize the time that people spend in the restrooms, that saved time adds up. This means less people in the queue, a higher restroom throughput, and a shorter wait time.
I know it's frustrating; my favorite drag bar in Miami does the same thing, and all I want to do is drunkenly pick at my face. I hate that we are denied our truth, but I really hope this helps.