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Back to Advice Line with Tope Awotona of Calendly, with Tope Awotona.

Should a Hardware Startup Manufacture at Home or Overseas?

Guy Raz tells Dominic, who makes the Newlane folding bike helmet in the United Kingdom, to pick one path: push the made-in-the-UK label as a premium, or manufacture abroad and cut costs. The website does not make that origin obvious. The origin is a premium on a high-quality product, and the manufacturers are probably highly skilled, so for now Raz would lean into the label.

Dominic says gross margins are healthy. The helmet sells for £100, with a higher-priced version. A retailer takes 40%, and a distributor takes about 35% to 40% of what is left. Moving the tools to a factory in the Far East would be expensive, and the geopolitical picture makes that move harder. The MIPS version adds a safety layer and is listed at $176. Dominic says it is the only folding helmet with that feature.

Transcript

Advice Line with Tope Awotona of Calendly ·

How I Built This with Guy Raz

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  1. What Is Calendly's AI Assistant Kali?Tope Awotona says Calendly's AI assistant is Kali. The company has repositioned from a scheduling platform to a meeting assistant platform.
  2. Can Founders Ship Software Without Much Money?Tope Awotona says founders can still launch application software without a lot of money. A frontier lab needs billions of dollars.
  3. Who Should a Bike Helmet Brand Market to?Tope Awotona tells Dominic, who makes the Newlane folding bike helmet, to market to the person who gets the rider to wear a helmet, not only to the cyclist.
  4. Should a Founder Pause Growth for a New Baby?Guy Raz tells Ivana, founder of Playfield, that an ambitious founder may need to put the brakes on for a couple of months.
  5. Why Did Calendly's Marketer Become Customer Success?Tope Awotona's first employee at Calendly was an engineer. The next hire was a marketer, brought in to grow the top line and increase demand.
  6. What Is Builder Gel at the Nail Room?Danny, who owns The Nail Room in Greer, South Carolina, says builder gel is a clear, thick gel applied to the natural nail so the nail gets stronger.
  7. Should a Full Nail Salon Open a Second Location?Tope Awotona tells Danny, who owns The Nail Room, not to open a second location yet.
  8. How Should a Small Brand Pick Which Sales Channel to Focus on?Tope Awotona says a small brand should pick one or two sales channels and put 80% of the founder's time there, while still keeping some diversification.
  9. Why Build Calendly Around the Customer?Tope Awotona says the lesson 13 years into Calendly is to build a business around a customer and not a product, and he calls that shift maybe the biggest…

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