Brandon Kennington

I own a product development and manufacturing company that builds brands that scale. I help creators and companies launch new $100 million products.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@disclosureorg @528vibes Is there going to be a new larger build volume model released by Bambu Labs any time soon?

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

YES!

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

Facebook ad costs keep going up. This isn’t sustainable for most ecommerce brands. Paying for traffic doesn’t cut it anymore. Time to get creative.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

Ecommerce is harder than it used to be. 5 ways to win at this game.

I know a lot of ecommerce business owners. They are all struggling in this economy. Mainly because the ad platforms now cost so much to perform well on, and shipping is so expensive. It’s really difficult to make the numbers work as well as they did a few years ago. 

The way ecommerce businesses win is:

1) have a great product (unique).

2) build an organic audience. Paying for ads is easy, but doesn’t work in the long run because the game is a race to the bottom (eventually the auction brings all competitors to a zero margin level).

3) know your unit economics. You should have a P&L for every brand, region, SKU, and channel. You should know
- % Cost Of Delivery (COD)
- % Ad Spend
- % OPEX
- % Profit (needs to be 20% or higher)

4) get serious with your creative content output. I’ve noticed many businesses get lazy with their creative. It requires work and attention. Don’t be lazy here. Good creative doesn’t have a linear result, it makes ad costs go down, while also making conversions go up. The results are exponential.

5) returning customers. You MUST have them. Break all your marketing metrics into two buckets: new customers and returning customers. Marketing strategies are COMPLETELY different for each. Don’t make the mistake of lumping them all together.

If you want more detail on any of these areas, drop a comment. If you want to reduce your product cost, let me know. Bluekube is a flex-factory that makes products for brands and creators.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

Experimenting with Mindset Shifts

Lately, I’ve been shifting my mindset in fitness from “good enough” to “why not be extraordinary?” I used to think reaching a certain level was sufficient, but now I realize that it is just an illusion I tell myself. What are these limits we put in ourselves? They are merely self imposed illusions.

We can all be more than we thought was possible. This isn’t just about physical health—it applies to every aspect of life. Why settle for average when we have the potential to be amazing?

I’m inspired by people like my wife, who regardless of being strong enough (she is plenty strong), or fit enough (she is plenty fit), would never even think of missing a workout or slowing down.

What would happen if we all approached all areas of life like that? Take a moment and think about what illusions of complacency you have that you didn’t even realize you had.
#Fitness #Mindset #Growth

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@elonmusk Elon Musk is our modern day Einstein, or Leonardo DaVinci. He will be in the history books as one of our greatest thinkers, and quite possibly, the man that saved humanity. Time will tell. I am honored to be an engineer while living in his generation. He gives me motivation.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

BlueKube is a Flex-Factory. What is a Flex-Factory?

A reconfigurable factory that can make various products. Everything is on wheels. One week, it’s making pet products. It gets reconfigured over the weekend, and the next week, its making camping gear. BlueKube owns its own Flex-Factories for 3 reasons:
1) Lower cost - Parts are lower cost when you can buy them from the raw material level. Think plastic parts, metal parts, sewn parts. The Flex-Factory uses these parts to then assemble in-house.
2) Quality Control - owning and operating your own factory means we can keep an eye on every step in the assembly and packaging.
3) IP Protection - our part suppliers never know (or care) what the final product is. Unlike traditional factories that might steal your idea and surprise you one day when you see your product on Amazon sold by another competitor. Keeping the final product assembly in-house ensures nobody gets your trade secrets.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@BryantJaquez Great post Bryant. Dealing with multiple sizes and high returns can be tough. What was your strategy to reduce returns from 30% to 5% ?

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@BLKMDL3 @elonmusk You have driven more than 221,000 miles!!!!!!?

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@elonmusk Is this rolling out to all Tesla’s or only the ones with paid FSD?

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@drewfallon12 Great breakdown. Any idea what caused the COGS to get out of control? Could they shop their suppliers a little harder?

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

Why Patents (are mostly) a Waste of Time

“Should I file for a Patent?”
I get this question a lot. It might seem like getting a patent for your product idea is the right thing to do. However, before you go spending on average $10,000 or more on filing a patent, read this first.

The short answer is likely “NO”. Don’t waste your money or time. There are only 2 exceptions to this, but most inventors don’t fall into those categories. The two exceptions are:

1) You raised capital and your investors insist on it, since they are betting on a sale of the company in the future, and having a patent is good for negotiating reasons.

2) Your idea is so huge and valuable, that you are willing to spend $1.5 million to $2.5 million to sue for infringement, and still have a low chance of winning after you did.

Remember, getting a patent doesn’t stop anyone from copying you, it just gives you the “privilege” to spend money on attorneys for the “chance” of getting the infringer to stop.

For most inventors, use that money to build prototypes, tooling and your first batch of inventory. Innovate faster than others and you won’t need patents.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@lolatRUbots @GoodAmerica1 @BarackObama You forgot to watch the actual footage of him saying that. Here it is. Does he sound like a dictator?

https://t.co/nD5VyxrzGQ

Do a search of every extreme thing you think Trump has said. I think you will learn you’ve been told a lie. Snopes is also good for fact checking.

[Logan Paul @LoganPaul]

The most gangster image of all time

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@syritis @AllSpace21 @DJSnM Why doesn't SpaceX use a collapsible silicone bag inside the fuel tank to keep the fuel from sloshing around? Baby bottles use this concept to keep the baby from swollowing air. It's a perfect solution.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

I can’t believe OpenAI fired Sam Altman yesterday. The one person who single handedly started a company from scratch and brought to become valued over $80 BILLION and arguably one of the most game changing in human history.

From my research, the speculation is that Sam comes from a venture background and believes the technology should be open to others to create new things with, but also commercialized, while a few board members believe they should take it slower and more research based.

As much concern as I have about mis-use of AI, I think the recent announcements they made at the Dev Day are awesome (custom GPTs for example) and are a great way to allow the world to be creative with the tech while still keeping close control of it. I’m with Sam.

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

SpaceX showed us what great engineering can do when they launched Starship 2. An amazing achievement and inspiring to watch. Their “move fast and break things” approach is a guide to us all.

This photograph is not a rendering or AI generated. It looks like a scene from StarWars

[Brandon Kennington @bluekuber]

@elonmusk @SpaceX Amazing footage. I was up early to watch it live. Can’t wait for flight 3. Let’s go!!!

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

https://t.co/WLQ6Qi7B7B

[World of Engineering @engineers_feed]

The slinky was invented by accident when a Mechanical Engineer named Richard James was working to devise springs that could keep sensitive ship equipment steady at sea. After accidentally knocking some samples off a shelf, he watched in amazement as they gracefully “walked” down instead of falling.