Want to know what business can make you a millionaire? Look no further! Discover the world of GloFX, where visionary eyewear and LED flow props come to life.
Hello there! I am the founder and chief executive officer of GloFX. and I bet that my business can make you a millionaire.
Our brand creates inventive eyewear and LED flow props, including kaleidoscope-lensed glasses and fiber-optic flow toys. If it enhances your vision or allows you to dance at a music festival, chances are we will make it or are considering making it.
Since our founding, we have sold millions of pairs of dimensional eyewear, making us the global leader.
We began marketing primarily to the ever-expanding EDM music festival demographic. Years later, this category still accounts for the majority of our sales.
We are fortunate to be able to develop with this community, as we enjoy being a part of EDM and festival culture.
It’s thrilling to say that we’ve expanded our brand into other markets, including arts and science museums, educational institutions, and EDM subculture fashion, despite devoting a significant amount of time and marketing resources to festivalgoers.
We have also been promoting our own line of batteries, which has performed exceptionally well since its introduction.
In addition to marketing the standard products we offer on our website, our wholesale team has done an excellent job handling bulk orders that are customized. We’ve seen significant success with experiential marketing campaigns in this area.
One of our most popular products that business can make you a millionaire is custom paper diffracted spectacles, which allow businesses to design their own spectacles and include their logo on the frames.
In 2018, GloFX was ranked 1,650th on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. Pictured below is a portion of our 2017 Sterling Manufacturing Business.
Now lets answer some questions
What is your history, and how did you develop this concept?
Although I have never intended to establish my own business, I believe I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit. At one point, when I was working 40 hours per week for a different employer, I realized that my efforts were contributing to someone else’s conception of success.
I began GloFX with $400, and within thirty months, that $400 had snowballed into $1,000,000.
GloFX was initially a side business I began in my garage during my off hours, selling basic glow products to local clubs. I was reinvesting my earnings, and before I realized it, I was earning 80% of my income while devoting only 20% of my time to its creation. And that’s saying a lot if you work 40 hours per week!
We moved from the garage into a modest office building. I initially rented two tiny offices, each approximately 10 by 15 feet. We were jam-packed! Within a year, we grew to include more than a dozen of these modest offices. We conducted a brief operation within each one. Overall, we occupied less than 2,000 square feet. Images below!
As soon as I discovered diffraction grating film, commerce took off. This eventually led to the creation of GloFX Diffraction Glasses, a crucial element in the evolution of our line of dimensional eyewear. I began GloFX with $400, and within thirty months, that $400 had snowballed into $1,000,000.
A few years later, we moved into our second location, which was half warehouse and half office space. It was approximately 4,000 square feet, which was enormous for us at the time.
We moved into our current location, which is approximately 15,000 square feet, in 2017. The new production warehouse is significantly larger than the previous location. We expect to outgrow this facility again in the near future.
Walk us through the design, prototyping, and production phases of your first product.
Developing a product is not a simple task. The Lux Series was one of our earliest and most significant product launches, and it took us roughly two years to save enough money to begin production. Gloving is a popular pastime in which individuals use the lights on the fingertips of their gloves to generate glowing patterns by moving their fingertips. Although the two forms are extremely dissimilar, they share a similar fluidity.
Then, when we believed we had sufficient funds (investments exceeding six figures), we went $20,000 over budget and spent over a year editing and refining the prototypes to create the perfect products.
The first step is product development. This includes developing concepts and ideas, researching marketing strategies, prototyping, sourcing, and production.
We then moved on to funneling. Then, we began analyzing marketing data, researching SEO, establishing prices, creating website pages to make all products accessible, and, finally, contemplating design elements such as themes, colors, and logos.
As soon as the logistics were in place, the marketing department began pushing our products as hard as possible.
This included social media, event promotion, paid advertising, wholesale outreach, advertising campaigns, and guerilla marketing. At the time, our team was relatively small, so marketing required all hands on deck.
Even our product engineer occasionally assisted with marketing. When Google Adwords was at its peak, it contributed to some of our greatest marketing successes. We now place greater emphasis on social media and display advertising. Before the launch of the series, one of our marketing meetings is depicted below. At the time, we were at our second location.
When the product launch finally occurred, there was already so much anticipation surrounding the Lux Series that there was no dip in sales.
During this procedure, we learned a great deal about the necessary safety precautions for lithium batteries and even hired a law firm to conduct patent research on our glove lights. Obviously, the procedure was not as straightforward as a few paragraphs, and everything that could have gone wrong did.
But we never lost sight of the objective, and the result was one of the largest product developments GloFX has ever undertaken.
What has worked to attract and retain customers since the launch?
Constantly focusing on “what’s next” is one of the most effective ways to retain customers. It is simple to assert, “This is working. Let’s continue doing the same thing,” but that is not how you grow. You must always take risks, because who knows? One of your wackiest ideas may also be one of the most brilliant.
For one of our earliest iterations of the Space Whip, one of our most popular flowing toys, we introduced Sparkle Fibers as an alternative to our standard Nano End Glo Fibers. Years later, when our team decided to reintroduce Sparkle Fibers, it represented a significant leap.
However, we knew that the flowing and whipping community had grown significantly since the initial release of Sparkle Fiber. When the Space Whip Remix officially came out, everyone went crazy for the “new” Sparkle Fibers. It was what we were looking for in our first release and more! You just have to flow with the market, follow your gut, and not be afraid of failure. If we hadn’t made that jump again, our sales this quarter would look much different.
We also focus on multi-tiered marketing. For us, this looks like heavily using buyer-intent keywords for search engine optimization, remarketing to high-value customers, and utilizing our reseller network. Over the years, we’ve shipped wholesale orders to thousands of resellers, and right now, we have over 300 approved resellers worldwide.
When we were starting out, we wanted to get ourselves face-to-face with our demographic. To do this, we did (and still do) have onsite event activations all across the USA. Most recently, we were the official Dimensional Eyewear and LED Flow Arts Sponsors of Electric Forest 2019.
How are you doing today, and what does the future look like?
Right now, we’re doing great. We just released our Space Whip Remix Series to the public, and this is our biggest product launch to date! Before the Remix came out, we were all focused on getting this product into the hands of our customers. Now that that’s released, we have time to spend on updating the website, refining our shipping processes, and more.
Amazon Prime Day was an amazing turnout for us and so was Electric Forest. We just got AfterPay officially installed into Glofx.com to allow buyers to pay in smaller installments, and we’ve already seen positive feedback from both sales and happy customers.
Moving forward, we’ve got some big projects sitting with the product development team, and our marketing team is helping out the creative and wholesale departments with media and outreach.
Overall, we have slow months and fast months depending on festival season and holidays, but there is always something to be done. And we’re always looking up to see how we can improve the company together.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
The first thing I would say is to hire slowly and fire fast.
When in the hiring process, you need to really make sure the employee you’re choosing is the right fit for the company. Are they going to excel at what they do and take tasks upon themselves to complete? Also, are they going to fit into the culture of your company?
Make sure you’ve covered all your bases, because the last thing you want to do is lay someone off. Employee turnover can be one of the most expensive and detrimental issues that a business faces. So if the time comes and you realize this person you hired wasn’t what you thought they would be, lay them off now rather than later. The sooner you realize this and pull the bandage off, the sooner you can get someone new in who will work much better.
Some more common things that I’ve heard over the years but still had to learn myself are trial and error. You can’t assume you’re going to get everything right on the first try. That’s an almost delusional idea. Accept that you are going to fail at some things when you are an entrepreneur. Once you can be comfortable with that idea, the quicker and more confidently you will bounce back, and the bounce back is always the most important step.
Also, watch out for tariffs and taxes! Nexus will almost always occur faster than you think, including globally. Don’t let your company suffer from an oversight like this.
What platform or tools do you use for your business?
With a growing company, we are always seeking out what programs and platforms work best for us. For our website, we have discovered that WordPress has done wonders. We have WooCommerce installed and numerous plug-ins to make things simpler. WooCommerce helps us out with website organization such as order monitoring, managing coupons, product page editing, creating sales and discounts, and more.
We use a variety of other tools, technologies, and integrations to maintain efficiency in our day-to-day operations. GloFX is a “systems and automation”-focused company, and we’re always searching for the most cutting-edge technology.
what have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I’m actually not big into books or podcasts, but I will admit that I have an intense appreciation for Google. If you have a query or want to learn more on a particular topic, Google is just a few clicks away. I’ve read some excellent articles over the years like this.
I would have to say that some of my greatest resources have been from peer influencers, observing my most prominent competitors and companies in different industries, and attending conferences and seminars. If you are presented with an opportunity to go to an informational conference or seminar, certainly take the offer. They are chalk full of information that is intended to help you in ways they feel should be expressed face-to-face. Some of my greatest leaps of knowledge came from these resources.
My last and greatest influence would be my dad. He was a salesman for 20 years and an engineer by profession, which happened to line up with my two top interests.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just beginning out
The advice I always impart is this:
Stay laser-focused. When you’re not seeing an immediate turnaround, it’s easy to give up or consider that maybe you should focus your time and efforts on something else. But if you’re hoping around from idea to idea, strategy to strategy, you’re never going to see the results of your hard labor. Don’t feel despondent when something doesn’t work. Use that as fuel for the next endeavor.
Make sure you’re producing quality products. I know it’s hard to find quality without having to fork out a lot of money, but investing in quality over quantity is the most essential. Customer feedback could, in the long run, make or ruin your sales. Steer away from products that have a tendency to fall apart as soon as they reach the customer, even if it’s easier on your wallet.
Create robust business systems. As indicated before, GloFX has many platforms and systems we rely on daily to organize our workload and maintain a steady balance of future goals and daily tasks. Never underestimate the force of a well-oiled machine and what it can accomplish.
And lastly, you must locate and train great employees to operate those systems. Having happy, capable employees will make the previous three steps a piece of cake. When everyone is clear about what they have to do and what is expected of them, that is when you have a functional company.