Flynn Anthony - Custom nation : why customization Is the future of business and how to profit from it

PRAISE FOR
CUSTOM NATION

Entrepreneurs are delivering unprecedented customer value by harnessing innovative business models to provide top-quality custom products at affordable prices. Custom Nation takes a good look at the history of customization, whos doing it well, and where it is headed.

Robert Keane, CEO and Founder of Vistaprint

As CEO of a company whose products are driven by customization, I can confidently say that consumers want specialized, ownable productsand this book shows you how to build a loyal customer base and improve your bottom line.

Jeffrey Housenbold, President and CEO of Shutterfly

Anthony Flynn applied customization to turn the humble nutrition bar into a personalized experience. In Custom Nation , he shares his insight on how to profit from the fact that all people are different. A must-read for all entrepreneursand anyone else interested in the future of business.

Frank Piller, Head of MITs Smart Customization Group

Custom Nation identifies a new space for an entrepreneur to create and grow a business, marrying the evolving technologies of customized production and distribution with the enabling power of internet communications to closely fit customer needs. It gives a newcomer concrete guidance for initiating and establishing a solid platform for future growth. What do I do on Monday? is a focus question for the handbook section of the book, and the book will tell you in clear and usable terms.

Norman E. Toy, Columbia Business School Adjunct Professor of Finance & Economics

Custom Nation is an engaging and insightful look at the evolution of customization and how individual consumers are now the driving force in the future of retail. Flynn and Vencat have created an insightful how-to guide for anyone looking to start their own customization business based on expert sources and their own customization entrepreneurial experience. A quick and entertaining read, Custom Nation captures the essence of how and why customization has become such a crucial part of the modern consumer experience. The book makes it easy for aspiring customizers to leverage this wealth of knowledge to build the successful CIY business of their dreams.

Jeff Beaver, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Zazzle

Customization is the buzzword in business these days and Custom Nation explains how to approach customizing effectively and make the most out of it.

Jan-Christoph Goetze, CEO and Founder of PersonalNOVEL

Emily Flynn Vencat and Anthony Flynn have brought the future to you today. This book chronicles how humankinds drive for self-expression has evolved and where it is heading.

Bob Marino, CEO of CafePress

CUSTOM NATION

CUSTOM NATION

WHY CUSTOMIZATION IS
THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS
AND HOW TO PROFIT FROM IT

ANTHONY FLYNN
EMILY FLYNN VENCAT

with Dennis Flynn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Copyright 2012 by Anthony Flynn and Emily Flynn Vencat

Shutterfly and CafePress images used with permission.

BenBella Books, Inc.

10300 N. Central Expressway, Suite 400

Dallas, TX 75231

www.benbellabooks.com

Send feedback to

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title.

978-1-937856-10-6

Editing by Debbie Harmsen

Copyediting by Lisa Miller

Proofreading by James Fraleigh and Brittany Dowdle

Indexing by WordCo Indexing Services, Inc.

Cover design by Kit Sweeney

Text design and composition by Cape Cod Compositors, Inc.

Printed by Bang Printing

Distributed by Perseus Distribution

(www.perseusdistribution.com)

To place orders through Perseus Distribution:

Tel: (800) 343-4499

Fax: (800) 351-5073

E-mail:

Significant discounts for bulk sales are available. Please contact Glenn Yeffeth at or (214) 750-3628.

Dedicated to

K

E

A V A

I

N

CUSTOM NATION

Contents

I woke up to the sound of my BlackBerry vibrating. I grabbed it and glanced at my emailsthere were thousands pouring in. Suddenly, my phone rang. It was PayPal, the payment processor. Do you have a minute? the voice said. Yes, I replied. Then the PayPal employee said something like, Youve had such a large amount of money come into your account in the last week, we believe you could be involved in illegal activity. What business are you in?

I was floored. I sell energy bars, I said. I could tell the PayPal employee wasnt convinced that I was telling the truth. And he was right to be dubious. Really, thats only half the story.

What he didnt realize was that during the week before that call, all the hard work I had put into launching a revolutionary new business had suddenly paid off. Those thousands of emails pouring in were customer orders. Im Anthony Flynn, the owner of YouBar, and during that single week in February 2008, my nutrition bar business had been featured in The New York Times , DailyCandy, National Public Radios Marketplace , ABC, NBC and Foxwith headlines like: With These Nutrition Bars, Every Order Is Special, Let Your Taste Buds and Imagination Take Over and A Nutrition Bar Created by You, for You.

Those headlines held the clue to what I hadnt told PayPal yet. Im not just in the business of selling energy bars. My secret is that my company sells completely customized energy bars. We make all of our bars to meet the exact ingredient, taste and nutritional needs of each of our individual clients, and we sell them for roughly the same price as the existing high-quality bars on the market.

My business revolutionized the world of nutrition bars, but we are actually just one small example of the massive upheaval in manufacturing that is happening right now. As we get deeper into the 2010s, the most successful companies in every industry in the United Statesfrom food to fashionare ditching mass production in favor of customization. This shift is so enormous and all-encompassing that it ultimately promises to define the coming decades as powerfully as the Industrial Revolution defined the 19th and 20th centuries. It is 2012, and we are at the beginning of the 21st centurys Custom Revolution.

The 21st Centurys Industrial Revolution

Just look around and youll see the Custom Revolution catching fire everywhere: Nikes custom sneakers, Burberrys custom trench coats, Levis custom jeans, Dells custom computers, Mattels custom Barbie Dolls, Hallmarks custom storybooks, Mars custom M&Ms, Fords custom Mustangs, Pottery Barns custom furniture andof courseStarbucks custom coffees.

Even the nonmaterialistic parts of our lives are teeming with customized purchases. Netflix plays personalized programming. Pandora broadcasts tailored-to-you radio stations. eHarmony offers personalized love matches. Google flashes just-for-you advertising sidebars. Facebook delivers customized newsfeeds. Amazon makes entertainment recommendations especially for you. And there are iPhone apps that sync with Google Maps to tell you which delicious nearby restaurant to hit after the movie your other iPhone app recommended.