Brad Feld

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Book: How We Make Stuff Now

Apr 29, 2019
Category Books

If you are an entrepreneur working on a physical product, Jules Pieri’s new book How We Make Stuff Now: Turn Ideas into Products That Build Successful Businesses is a must read.

Jules is the founder / CEO of The Grommet, a website that discovers a new and amazing product every single day. They’ve been doing this for around a decade (over 3,000 products). I’ve known Jules since around the time she started The Grommet and they’ve discovered and reviewed a handful of products that we’ve invested in over the years.

The book has two particularly compelling characteristics. Jules goes through 16 competencies for success for a hardware or consumer product business, each which are a chapter. These include chapters like Design and Documentation, Prototyping, Funding, Manufacturing, Packaging, Direct to Consumer, Logistics, and Inventory Management.

Then, each of these chapters is filled with case study examples from companies that have had products in The Grommet.

Jules’ context, experience, and practical advice combined with the case studies are powerful.

The book also starts off with a section (and five chapters) on starting your business, so it is extra helpful to the aspiring entrepreneur.

Jules (and team) – congrats on all the progress over the years with The Grommet. And Jules, thank you for this book – it’ll be very helpful for a number of entrepreneurs I know.