He is the founder of Instant Pot. More than 5.5 million people follow Instant Pot related accounts on Facebook alone. People even make decals and knit sweaters for their Instant Pot.
On Black Friday, Instant Pot was the best selling non-Amazon product on Amazon. According to Walmart, Instant Pot was also their best selling item in 33 states.
Community building comes down to shared ownership. It’s best to figure out what to do with your customers rather than do for them. Wang, the founder of Insta Pot, has created a collaborative and creative approach with his customers.
He thought the problem wasn’t that it was going to be popular on the market, but that stores had limited coverage. The best way to let people know of his product was through online businesses.
Robert tried different marketplaces for selling his Instant Pot. eBay buyers were looking for bargain, so that wasn't a good long-term opportunity. Meanwhile Amazon had a massive scale, and was ready for a premium product.
Using Amazon, Instant Pot got national, and sometimes even international coverage, which was great for business. All the attention also drove lots of customer feedback, which they quickly implement back into the product, shipping a new version of Instant Pot every 12-18 months.
Offline brick-and-mortar stores did not want to carry Instant Pot, so Robert Wang started to sell online out of desperation. He placed the product online, and since the term “electrical pressure cooker" was fairly new, search engine optimization helped to drive traffic.
The team at Instant Pot was laser focused on only one thing - keeping the customer happy. Robert did not have any budget for influencer marketing, but bloggers heard of the positive reviews and approached Instant Pot anyway. To return the favor, Wang enabled them with what he could, a free Instant Pot for whatever they needed. In returned, they advertised Instant Pot for free!
One insight that Wang acknowledges is that cooking is not a solitary practice, but a social practice.
The company needed a place to talk about Instant Pot. Email and Facebook Pages weren't a good place to do that, but Facebook groups ended up as the best choice to host a community and to create a buzz about the product.
According to Wang, a customer used Instant Pot for an art project. Another customer used the product for planting during the winter. Wang loves the creativity of Instant Pot users.